

## THE SLEEP

By David M. Antonelli

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

David Antonelli on Smashwords

The Sleep

Copyright © 2019 by David M. Antonelli

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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There are a few people I'd like to acknowledge:

Paula Baticioto Benato is thanked for help in designing the cover page. Marylu Walters is thanked for guidance on early versions of this manuscript.

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## THE SLEEP

### By David Antonelli

"A shudder in the loins engenders there

The broken wall, the burning roof and tower

And Agamemnon dead..."

W. B. Yeats, from _Leda and the Swan_

BOOK 1

Chapter 1.1

New York opened its mouth and exhaled into the sour trombone blare of the dying day. It was dusk and the city lights danced a fatalistic foxtrot across the cigar-smoke skyline as the buildings gradually dissolved into mere outlines and finally gave way to nothingness, devouring the humidity that made everything seem to matter even less than it had the day before. Laura Chain let her i-phone slip out of her fingers and fall into her lap as she took notice of at the middle-aged man sitting across the table from her. He had just approached her through the whiskey-glass clatter of Selbey's and taken a seat beside her. There was something languidly nocturnal about him that was both perilous and intriguing. The pianist in the corner was playing a gutted and transposed version of a song she thought she recognized from an old piece of vinyl tucked away somewhere in her apartment but couldn't quite put her finger on, his white-gloved hands sliding like liquid felt over the ivory keyboard.

"Are you alone?" the man asked in a quietly intelligent way that was rare in New York. From his accent he was obviously British. Laura let her gaze rise to a baroque chandelier hanging in all its precarious glory from the ceiling.

"Yes," she said in the shrill whisper of a woman raising a curtain of defense. "I usually come here alone."

"Do you mind if I join you?"

"It seems you already have." Laura had seen all manner of men in Selbey's – Frank Light, Frank Mild, Frank Uncut, Frank Classic, and even Frank Menthol – but somehow this one seemed different.

"My knees still hurt from my flight," he said. "They say you should always get up and take small walks on an overseas flight to prevent thrombosis."

"I wouldn't know. But not that I haven't wanted to find out."

"You should really come to the UK some time. I'm from London and don't know what I would do if I could never go back. But I guess that's what everyone says about their home town. That, and how much they want to leave it! People can be so contradictory sometimes, can't they?"

"Yes," she agreed with a cautious grin.

He went on to explain how he was new in "America", as though somehow sitting there in front of her in New York meant he was simultaneously in all parts of the country, and how he had come to "explore" it in a way that made it seem he fancied himself a kind of modern Christopher Columbus. When he was finished, he stood up and made a direct line to the bar. He came back and set two double scotches on the table like pieces from an arcane game meant to be placed exactly where he had just put them and nowhere else.

He looked at her without saying anything as though prompting further conversation with an excess of silence. There was something stern and official, perhaps even military, in his hard weathered face. Yet in the depths of his eyes and the soft lines that emanated from their outer edges she saw glimpses of a lonely man desperately seeking comfort and security. Hardly the modern day explorer he had just proffered. Perhaps he was on a business venture, or maybe, like many other men his age – forty-eight she guessed by his lightly-frosted black hair, etched forehead, and London Fog raincoat – came to New York to escape the specter of a woman he once loved.

"Laura Chain," she said as she held out her hand. He took her palm in a chivalrous way and let it slip gently back to the table.

"Chain?" he then said in the manner of a question.

"Yes," she replied. "As in the metal links used to pull boats and keep bridges from falling in the water."

"Or mail," he said ironically. He spoke with his lips close together, as though he was trying to hide the slight smile on his face. "I've never met a woman who wasn't fascinated by the stuff."

"Chain mail or the just stuff the postman drops?"

"Maybe both. You're a woman, so maybe you should tell me."

"And you?"

"John Halo."

"Halo?" She paused for a moment as her mind stalled in an attempt to make a witty connection that never came.

"As in rings," he said, as though to relieve her. "Maybe even the sun. As in the rings around an eclipse." His blue eyes were cold but reassuring, like the LED on her clock radio. "But names aren't important. Not when you're looking for a place to stay for the night."

"You must be tired," she said. It seemed strange that a man of his obvious social standing hadn't yet booked a hotel. "You should have said something earlier."

"Yes," he said as he nodded his head slowly as though recounting an uncomfortable memory. "I'm sorry. I should have. That's why I came here. The taxi dropped me off and I'm absolutely exhausted. But there's nothing like a few scotches to keep one going after a long flight. It's better than coffee. Even a good espresso will just sap the life out of you after an eight-hour flight. Lagavulin, however..." He picked up his glass, his lips stretching into a large smile as he raised the rim to just below his chin.

Laura looked beyond him to the far wall where a waiter had just brought out a large silver dish covered by a retractable dome to a table in the far corner. Even through the smoke of the bar she could see the steam rising from the platter when he opened the cover. A bald man in fussy wire-rimmed spectacles waited eagerly to be served. It was Stardust Buffet Night and the investment managers from Wall Street were already starting to file in. It was a crowd she normally avoided, but for some reason she felt restless sitting in her apartment just an hour before and needed a nightcap.

"Manhattan is a city of hotels," she said. "I guess that's what makes it interesting."

"Yes. London is much the same." He paused and pulled out his wallet. "Maybe I should start making a few phone calls. Nothing that Visa can't sort out." He was suddenly lost in thought as he gazed into his whiskey glass and swirled around the ice cubes. When he looked back at Laura and their eyes met immediately. She pressed her lips together and looked down at the table.

"It seems the world is more lost than it ever was," he said with sudden vexation. "And to think we all act like we've exonerated ourselves from the dark ages."

Laura smiled with uncertainty and curled her fingers back into her palms. She pressed her hand against her stomach. She could almost feel yesterday's champagne bubbling away inside her and didn't want to let on that she was hung over. Mace. The surging music of his soft matted chest warming up against her cheeks to the tune of a thousand wailing sirens across the frantic basin of the wild and desperate night.

Halo set his glass down and leaned towards her. "When I was younger I always used to think the world was progressing all the time. That every minute something new was happening, some new discovery or new law passed, that was going to make the world a little better. Once we get rid of the inquisition, the world is a better place and always will be. Right? And that's the way we all act. We think we are getting better all the time. But what happens next? What about the House of Bourbon? What about the slave trade? We just go on with our mundane lives trying our best to ignore the dark currents around us. Perhaps it's just survival, but we think that things like this..." He reached and picked up the cell phone from her lap, examining it with mixture of curiosity and contempt. "...things like this are going to improve the world." He set it down on the table. "I just read an article on the plane that claimed Finland was the most progressive country in the world because it had the highest percentage of _Snapchat_ users. The writer even described with glowing enthusiasm how he had witnessed a couple exchange stories on that bloody app in a restaurant while sitting right across from one another! What do you make of that?"

"I see your point," she said, "But on the other hand, what would we do without telecommunications? Just think of how many lives have been saved because of better technology."

"Don't worry. I'm not one of _those negativists_ ," he replied as though he regarded pessimism as total anathema. He looked around sharply as though he were expecting somebody to be listening in. Then he began to whisper. "I think mankind is in the midst of a great deluge. We can drape ourselves with whatever beautiful cloaks modern technology has to offer us. We can nod with fulsome pride whenever some country overthrows a political leader whose policies we find abominable. Yet deep inside..."

"I don't hate," she said, in sudden opposition to something he had not yet said. Her mind flashed to the night before. Krug, Bolinger, and Veuve Clit, or whatever it was called. The soft pink and gold bubbles dancing on her tongue. The crudely beautiful smell of a cigar lingering on her pillow. Mace. And then silence. Darkness. Or whatever it was. She wondered if she would ever again experience such a glorious combination of freedom and desolation. It brought back those narcoleptic memories of shivering nights in abandoned railway cars outside of Portland drinking Southern Comfort with Johnny Enzyme, her first _real_ lover. But that was before. That was when she was too young to know what the world was really like: Starbucks and Facebook insinuating their cold tentacles into the Cosmos, strangling the Universe of all imagination and hope. 666. It was all a part of corporate American expansionism, whether it was KFC in Karachi or Chrysler plants in Belize. And that was also before she knew what love was _really_ like. With her first _real_ lover she didn't even find out what love was _really_ like.

"No, I sense you _do_ hate," he said with introspection. "Come now. I can see it in your eyes. They are swollen like a woman fresh off a wild drunk or a good cry. But your hair is done up so nicely..." He reached out and touched a brown rivulet that fell in front of her ear. "You look like the final sad product of a thousand years of aristocracy and decadence. Like a woman bloated with excess, filled to your brim, but filled with opulence and splendor. Yes. And even more. An artwork. The proof of the disease to which I was referring. The disease of the Russian hemophiliac, the disease of beauty taken to its very extreme, so full and flourishing that it has nothing left to give but emptiness. And that's why you hate. You can't give the world anything but this emptiness. And that is why emptiness is all the world gives back to you."

Laura adjusted the elastic strap of her bra and looked deeply into his eyes, allowing him to look deeply back into hers without fear of flirtation. Like two souls alone. Whoever he was, no matter how impertinent his accusations, his words had a treacherous ring of truth. Deep down inside she knew she wasn't happy. Far from it. Nobody was. Everyone knew that life was worthless, at least in the form it was presented in modern western society, but people went on living it anyway. Growing up had brought to her a gradual hardening with which she was never quite comfortable.

"Who are you anyway?" she suddenly retorted. "I mean, what on earth is going on here? I just came here for a quiet drink." She picked up her purse to signal she was ready to leave. "I was waiting for a friend to come by. He might be here soon. I'm not sure he would approve. No. I don't think he would. Not of this."

"Of what?" Halo replied with unexpected decency. "Excuse me if I was too forward. In my trade I often run across beautiful young women. But you are different. Special. The same, but different. A true diamond amongst zircons."

Diamond. It was what Mace called her the last time he came over. She loosened her grip on her purse. She was suddenly calm. "What do you do?" she asked.

"I'm here to find someone. Or better, I'm here to make sure a person I already know doesn't get any further than he already has."

"Further in what?"

"You might laugh. Especially if this sort of scene is your norm." He gestured out into the room. "All the stock brokers. Money. You know."

"Tax evasion?"

"Very good," he said like a schoolmaster surprised at the rapid progress of one of his pupils. "Not quite, but quite- _ish_. Close, if you know what I mean."

"So you're a cop." Laura hated cops as much as she hated financiers. They were in the business of control and corruption, but passed it off as the highest forms of moral rectitude and common sense.

"No," he said. "Dead wrong. But close. Yet dead wrong – _ish_." He smiled on noticing he had poetically echoed his words from just a moment before.

"Then what?"

"What do you think?"

"I told you already."

Just then Laura's i-phone leapt into its _Lincoln Park_ ringtone. She picked it up and flipped open the cover.

"Yes," she spoke into the receiver. "o...is that you?" She paused and looked across the room at a group of Gucci-clad businessmen that just walked in the door. They marched in single file around the piano and then sat down at a table in the far corner. A waiter rushed up and started fawning over them as though something bad was about to happen and he was the only one who saw it coming and knew how to prevent it. He waved his hands nervously in the direction of an impeccably set table in the corner. The men walked over to the table and sat down in unison, as though part of some secret financial brotherhood.

"Sorry," she went on. It was her friend Rajat from the office. He was a tall Sikh who spoke with a Scottish accent. He had just started working with her at Diva advertising a few months before. They collaborated on a few projects, the most interesting of which was the promotion of a new line of aftershave that was supposed to appeal to gay and straight men alike. It had a revolutionary new pheromone that adjusted itself through some intimate binding action to the proteins in the user's sweat so that gay men were only attracted to the scent on a gay male and straight women were only attracted to the scent on a straight man.

Halo tilted his head, as though trying to figure out the missing pieces of the conversational puzzle. Noticing his curiosity, she shook her head slowly to let Halo see she was agreeing to something that had just been said.

"Sure," she finally exclaimed. "I'll see you." She turned to Halo and widened her eyes. The world had just flicked on. "Now," she said. "Where were we?"

Halo was impatiently tapping his fork on the table to the rhythm of the piano player. "I should go soon," he said.

Laura felt suddenly deflated. The night was just starting to get interesting, and now he was going to abandon her in a bar filling up with bankers and investors. "Yes," she said languidly, trying as much as possible to slow him down.

"I have to find a place to stay."

"A place to stay," she repeated. "Certainly. You must."

As he started to readjust his posture he reached across the table and touched her hand. His fingers were warmer than she would have guessed.

"Do you think if I came here again, perhaps tomorrow, you might be here? It would certainly be a shame if we were never to meet again. It seems so rare in life that a chance encounter leads to such a wonderful sequence of moments."

"Yes," she said with encouragement. Countless men had said similar things and she had pretended to be charmed. Yet somehow his words were different. They were filled with the dim promise of something great, a moving dream that flutters through the mind in the middle of the night, waking you up just to give you the chance to savor its infinite nuance only to slip away once again into the depths of forgetfulness. Only this time she wasn't going to forget.

"So," he said with tender confidence. "I'll be here tomorrow at eight. I'll look for you, but don't worry if you come later. I'm used to being alone in a foreign country."

"Yes," she said. "I'll be there. Or here, I mean." He stood up and walked to the door. "There's a Radisson just down the street," she called out to his back, but he had already walked out the door, leaving her alone with only her i-phone to comfort her. A businessmen looked over at her and smiled richly as though he was graciously inviting her to join them now that she had been abandoned by her date. She reached out a waiter that had just walked by and grabbed him by the coat tails. He stopped and winked, seeming to find her gesture an invitation to further flirtation.

"Another scotch," she ordered.

"A double?"

"Of course." She shrugged her shoulders in a gesture of casual superiority.

"Certainly." His expression dropped and he walked towards the bar.

That night Laura drank alone, and more than she had in weeks. For most it would have been unusual to see such a beautiful and well-adorned woman drinking so much by herself, but the staff at Selbey's were used to it. They had seen her do it before. Not often, but on occasion. They knew her and liked her. She had style and grace, never lost control, and was always able to light up the bar and beyond – or beautifully darken it - wherever she went. There were rumors amongst the waiters she was connected to Danish nobility, but no one really knew for sure since Laura was perfectly happy to let any rumor fly. Whatever it was, no matter how good or bad, it could do her no harm, because the truth, her truth, was something far more profound, a secret they would never know and even if they somehow managed to capture a glimpse, would never understand. She was a logarithmic singularity - a black swan event unto herself - and everyone she encountered would have to accept the world according to her laws and bow to her unspoken dominion. She hated money and everything that it stood for. But that was fine. That was just one of her many secrets. That's what all the men at Selbey's didn't know and never would. They would never have her with their money, and they would never have her with their souls. She was forever taken, so permanently out of reach, and they would never, never know.

That night she walked home slowly, taking a longer route than usual, past an abandoned warehouse and then a small park, allowing the whiskey to guide her in gentle meandering curves through the wide boulevards and narrow lanes offered up in random sequence by the Manhattan night. Several times she stopped in sudden shock, recalling in vivid detail how she had agreed to a date – or was it only a rendezvous? - with Halo, wondering why she had allowed herself to give in. After all, she had Mace and wasn't looking for anyone to replace him. Women were never looking, even when they were, they really weren't. After convincing herself of her innocence she would let these memories vanish into the blue-black mantle of the night only to have them reappear moments later, making her stop dead in her tracks once more.

When she got home she closed the door quietly, leaving the city behind her with all its brush strokes of automobile horns and abandoned alleyways, illuminated only by the gaze of the starkly gentle moon. She undressed in front of her mirror and climbed into bed. Her sheets were cool on the surface, belying an indescribable softness and inner warmth that made her think of a baby's skin. She was half asleep in minutes, staring out her window at the cozy New York skyline, all thoughts of the evening now evacuated from her mind as she drifted slowly away from the shores of everything she knew.

### Chapter 1.2

Laura woke up the next day at noon. She took a hot shower and then combed her hair in front of the gilded frame baroque mirror that greeted her in the bathroom every morning. Her meeting from the night before was in many ways typical of her life. Men were always trying to meet her. They were always making the same mistake. Would they never learn? While she possessed all the right virtues to stand as a heroine in any classic novel – and she had read most of them – she preferred to show the world everything she could do wrong rather than everything she could do right. Wasn't the hero always so boring? Wasn't goodness always at the expense of personality and, therefore, class? Since she was a girl in Portland she had schooled herself in the softer sides of evil – tiny white lies uttered under her breath in the coat room when the teacher wasn't listening - before graduating to something more substantial, like making out in a tree fort with a track star and a bottle of cheap champagne after at a debating club gala. But she also knew her limits. She knew what was right and what was wrong and whenever she did something wrong she always felt herself getting a little bit smaller and a little bit older. Something died inside. Something shriveled up and scampered away into some dark corner of herself where nobody would ever see it again, not even herself when she was up alone at night staring into the panting jaws of her insomnia as she rummaged desperately through her apartment for those last fatal drops of wretched Galliano.

Yet weren't blemishes and weaknesses also beautiful? Wasn't the Venus de Milo made more beautiful by its loss of two arms or Achilles more interesting by his selfish gloating and tender heel? Life was a great work of art in which you had to blend good and evil together like two colors on a canvass. To be too good was like a painting executed all in one color – something not even Mark Rothko or Barnett Newman would have dared - and to be too evil made you no different than those tedious conceptualist sculpture exhibitions she had seen one too many times in those basement Flatiron art galleries. Balance was the secret. It was her secret, one of her many secrets, and her motto: be evil enough to color your life with its reckless beauty, but always be good enough to protect yourself from scorn and inevitable self-destruction.

A few times in her life she almost lost this balance, just almost, and feared she would go tumbling away into oblivion, never to be whole again. The worst of these incidents involved Rick Stork, the coldly handsome real estate tycoon she met when she first moved to Manhattan. He smacked of money. He reeked of it. His arteries might just as well have been sewn out of thousand dollar bills. But even though he had more money than anyone she had ever heard of, even those on countless top ten who's who lists, he never looked the part of real estate tycoon. He wore a white cowboy hat and blue jeans and always looked like he was swaggering back from some old Wurlitzer he had just plugged for ten minutes of Hank Williams Senior and his West Texas moan. Money was something she never had much of and for this reason it had always been surrounded in mystery. But after Stork, every time a man flaunted his wallet it was enough to make her heart churn with anger. After all, it was Stork that made her hate money. His money was her failure to make him love her. Stork. That one hurt. That one she would rather forget, unless she could have it over again. But since she knew she never would, she settled on _forgetting_ \- wasn't it always the best solution? Yet the image of his face still plagued her late at night or sometimes even while she was soaring through the clouds of lovemaking Mace. Why didn't Stork fall in love with her like most men did? And why did his not falling in love with her end up being an obsession on her part for _him_?

As she sat in her apartment staring out the window into an alleyway watching two Puerto Ricans shouting at each other at the top of their lungs about something that must have been awfully important to them, she pondered over her strange meeting from the night before. It wasn't that she found Halo attractive, or even thought of him that way at all. She wasn't in the market for a new lover. She was seeing Jonathan Mace and was perfectly happy with him. In fact, Mace would be coming over the very next night with his usual stack of records and tiny satchel of cocaine. She could almost hear his black boots clicking on the polished linoleum of her floor as she imagined him making love to her against her kitchen wall like some dark troubadour from the gates of hell. Mace was far from perfect. But he was certainly exciting enough and would do for now, maybe even longer. And that made him perfect enough, at least for the time being. No one knew why they were together, but they were and that was all that mattered. But Halo? There was something about him that sounded a deep chord inside her that had not been struck for so long she no longer knew what it meant when she heard it. It was an emotion that was neither good nor bad that had no direction or obvious response. All she knew was that it was triggered by Halo, or at least by their meeting, and because of this, it was starting to bother her.

She walked into the kitchen and picked up her sleek black i-phone from beside the microwave. She dialed Mace's number. There was no answer. Ten minutes later she dialed it again. This time it was busy. She dialed ten minutes after that and there was still no answer. She set the phone down and went into the living room to turn on the television. She pressed the "ON" button and a blue-gray light pulsed for a moment before enveloping the room. A huge Sasquatch of a man appeared before her. He was eating a hot dog in a talk show living room decorated with a tinsel backdrop and talking about the politics of the West Bank as he incongruously stroked a small Dachshund nestled in his lap. What seemed especially strange, given the serious subject matter, was that the man was lying face up on a lime green couch as though he were ready to take a nap. She flicked through the channels until she found something more interesting: a subtitled version of an old black-and-white Italian film. After watching it for ten minutes, she pressed the "OFF" button. The film had no discernable plot; the camera just followed a man around who always seemed to be hollering and shaking his fist at people.

Laura was from Oregon. She was born in Portland on in the early nineteen eighties while her father was away fighting some covert war in Central America from which he never returned. Her mother, a willowy redhead with deep blue eyes, remarried a quietly intense Sioux man who always wore a Seattle Mariners cap and taught German philosophy at a small college in Eugene. After five years, he left her in favor of his boyhood sweetheart, a woman who lived outside of Vancouver on a small native reserve and made a living as a part time lawyer, selling fruit in her spare time to keep in touch with nature, something Laura's mother always mocked her for. Since then, Laura's mother had remained alone, convinced she was not destined to be with men. It was just before her second husband left that Laura first discovered men. Her mother was beautiful into her middle age and beyond, but in her rebellion against men always acted like she wasn't, so Laura was determined to make up for it. In her tender early teen days she imagined herself as a Celtic princess shimmering at the peak of an icy mountain as armor-clad men struggled their way up the treacherous slopes, fighting off their rivals just to get a chance to touch her. Her love was a volume of the world's most sacred verses, desired by every sage and scholar of the heart on the planet, but possessed by no one. It was a gift to mankind, designed to blossom forth like a Grail mystery in the souls of the opposite sex, as opposed to a hunger or need that stemmed directly from within her. So she was doing the world an act of incomparable good by giving them all a tiny sliver - and nothing more - of something great and eternal nestling inside her while taking nothing in return.

This all came to a calamitous end when she met Johnny Enzyme. He was slender and had the large round eyes of a Slavic poet and hair the color of gingerbread. He was the lead singer of a rock band called _The Marauders_ that had a fanatical local following but never made it out of Portland. He pointed his warm love gun to her head and with one quick blast vanquished all her notions of going through life without ever falling for a man. He made her everything she was. The first time she laid eyes on him was in a cramped dank club in the warehouse district, a place where teenaged punk rockers hung out wearing dark purple lipstick and black fishnet stockings, often over long johns or even jeans. His cursing onstage had the solemn transcendence of a Gregorian chant, and when he moved – more like a woman than a man – from side to side in front of his band, she imagined they were walking through the streets of Paris together whispering poetry into each other's ears. It didn't take long before she was following him from gig to gig, waiting until the club shut down in hope that he would finally notice her and invite her backstage. After three months she finally got her wish. He came up from behind and tapped her shoulder. When she turned around he said something in the manner of a medieval knight – she was never able to remember exactly what - a random and likely meaningless phrase spoken in an exaggeratedly chivalrous tone. What could he have wanted with her? He must have been making fun of her or had mistaken her for someone else. But then he said more. He had noticed her standing in the back two months ago and had even started to expect her at his performances, hoping each time as he warmed up backstage that she would be there in the audience to greet him with her glance as he came on stage. What happened over the next several months was something she was never able to fully retrieve from her memory, perhaps because the experiences they shared were so incandescent and the feelings between them so strong that she had subconsciously locked them away, equally desperate in her sense of loss as she was in the knowledge that such ultimate satisfaction could never be relived. The only memory she allowed herself to indulge was that of their last night together, just before he went off to Jamaica and ended up dying in a car accident. They were lying on a bed in his small one room flat in central Portland looking out at the night sky. It was New Years Eve nineteen ninety-nine and she had just turned eighteen a month ago. He had painted her face with bright Tempera colors as if in preparation for some native ritual and proclaimed her - a champagne cork popping hard against the ceiling and the sound of a helicopter droning in the distance - _the first woman of the twenty first century_. He kissed her on the lips and poured champagne over her naked body before taking a long swig and setting the foaming bottle down on the now wet and sticky hardwood floor. At exactly 12:00 a.m. he knelt down to lick her vagina and then proceeded to make love to her, the trickle of blood on the sheet signing a quivering end to the legal documents of her virginity. The world opened up in notches and her life became, at least for a moment, an ineffable mystery – the centerpiece of some new religion - to which only she and Johnny Enzyme held the key. She was _the first woman of the twenty first century_ , and it was now the new millennium. He assembled a tiara out of toilet paper rolls cut up and taped together with aluminum foil and set it on her head. Her coronation was complete. Beyond the objective timing of their cathartic encounter, what he _really_ meant by this, she never knew, but once the news of his tragic death came from Jamaica she made it her life's mission to honor his memory and find out. It was her hour of becoming, her minute, her second, the first _real_ moment on that enormous stretch of eternity she always took to be her life.

After this the men she met were never quite right. No matter how much they loved her, she could never regain what she had lost with Johnny Enzyme that one rainy night on a winding road somewhere in the middle of the ocean in a place she had never seen or wanted to see. It was no longer enough just to be admired. He had changed all that. She needed to feel love streaming out from inside her and not just coming towards her. And since her heart was a stone numbed even more so by her loss, she was sure she would never love again. Or, at least until she moved to New York and met Stork. The one man who didn't love her in return. The first man who just didn't care. And once that was over and she had lost all will to make Stork change she finally felt she had grown up, or died, whichever narrative seemed to fit best the frame of conversation.

After high school, a full year after Johnny Enzyme's death, Laura started college in Portland, financing herself by waiting tables in a logger's café whose owner was rumored to be the chief supplier of Crystal Meth to truckers across the Pacific Northwest. She dropped out of art history, economics, and law before finally ending up with a degree in American Literature with a minor in Central Asian Studies, doing a final year thesis on the influence of Farsi poetry - especially Rumi - on the novels of Jack Kerouac. But while her heart lied with the Beat movement and World Literature, she always had a soft spot for Henry James, writing a twenty-page essay on _A Portrait of a Lady_ that expressed her admiration for him taking up women's issues at a time when it was very unfashionable for anyone – even a woman - to do such a thing. While most writers of his time treated them as little more than objects of their hero's desire, James was just the opposite: if any of his characters came across as wooden or lacking substance, it was strangely always the men. One of her professors, an older British man who always wore the same blue sweater, patched at the elbows with soiled leather ovals, argued it was the main weakness in his works, setting up the hero as a straw man just to make the woman look better. But she didn't see that as a flaw, but rather a basic male trait, as men always seemed to speak about other men as though they were the only male of the species walking the planet with any iota of virtue. Maybe that's why she liked Mace. He was the opposite. He never tried to look good by making other men look bad. He was just Mace and that was enough. It had carried their relationship for over two years and showed no sign of abandoning them. With Mace there was always more talk of sex or the detailed mechanics of their relationship than there ever was of love and eternity. He was the practical one and she was the dreamer. Her mother said they had nothing in common, but that didn't matter. Somehow it just _worked_.

She woke up to the sound of the phone ringing. She hadn't realized she had fallen asleep. The TV screen showed only static. She sprang up and tiptoed quickly into the kitchen. A thick voice met her on the other end.

"You called?" Mace asked.

"Where were you?"

"I had to go out and get some late night groceries." It was an obvious lie, but she was too light headed from her nap to call him on it. A more likely story was that he was out at the local pool hall perfecting his break over a joint and a few beers.

"I was just watching a film," he said. His breathing turned to slow heavy grunts, as though in protest. " _The Manchurian Mitre_...a new dystopian flick about a Chinese Pope." He paused as if to gauge her interest in hearing more. "OK...I'll be over in half an hour," he broke the long silence in a terse way that anyone who didn't know him might have taken as a threat.

"Sure," she replied. She looked out the window at a pink neon sign flashing off in the distance. The word "Byzantine" appeared in her head, as though from nowhere. It hung before her mind's eye for a few seconds, allowing her to savor its labyrinthine textures and soft ringing sound. Byzantium. It made her think of long winding rivers and tall stone pillars with incomprehensible inscriptions etched on the side. "I'll be waiting for you."

She heard a click on the other end and she put the phone down. The pink sign continued flashing in the hot barbaric night. It had an elegance that reminded her of old films she had seen about jewel thieves in nineteen fifties Las Vegas: diamonds in tiny black bags, white-gloved hands parting curtains in air conditioned hotel rooms, and Martinis glittering in frosted crystal glasses. She picked up the remote and shut off the television. The pink light from the sign seemed to diminish in intensity as though taking its cue and following suit. Perhaps it was her one greatest failing in life that she was always looking for meaning where there wasn't any, as though life was like sitting beside a dumb waiter; whatever it brought to you was put there by someone else for some reason she could never know but always yearned to find out.

When Mace walked through the door he was holding a can of beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He had a red bandana tied around his head with interlocking blue swastikas – ancient symbols of unity and transcendence - embroidered in shiny black thread. He looked taller than usual. Perhaps it was his black riding boots or the way he zipped up his motorcycle jacket all the way to his neck. She was still in her bathrobe and was fanning herself with a paperback although it wasn't at all hot in her apartment. He grumbled something about food and walked past her into the living room, setting his beer can down on her coffee table with a loud clack. She could tell he wasn't happy.

"Can we have some music in here? You know how I always like to have music on wherever I go."

She sauntered over to her CD collection. She was never afraid of him when he was in a bad mood; in fact, it was just the opposite. She knew it wasn't real anger. She understood him. It was like a little baby throwing a tantrum. What did you do? Hit the baby when it screamed too loud? Call the police when it smeared food on the table? No. You soothed it.

He stood up and gently pushed her away from the CD rack. "Just let me pick something before you put some crap on and put me in a bad mood."

"Like you have a worse mood in store for us?" Laura looked over at him and set her hand on his shoulder.

"I'm being a dickhead, aren't I?"

"I'm not sure," she said. Mace looked into her eyes. Laura's forehead had the same elegant furrows it had the day he first met her – the one day in his life he would never forget. It was a year after he finally got his shit together and cleared out of LA. She was standing over an incense counter in one of those hippie bookstores in Queens that sold books on witchcraft and Tarot decks. Her hair was flat against her head and brown, flaring out like a bell at her shoulders and bouncing lightly as she swayed slowly back and forth. Her eyes were brown almonds that glowed in a way that brown never had glowed before. She had a look of untouched innocence like many of the women he had seen in his motorcycle escapades through Central America, yet in her case it was tempered with something he took as distinctly European. Prague, he thought, although he had never been to Europe: Stevie Nicks live in fucking Prague.

"I'm sorry. I had a bad day," he apologized. "I spent an hour watching fucking CNN in some hokey electronics store in Times Square. The world is getting so damn corporate. War is a matter of sponsorship like anything else. Your only freedom is to choose between brand X and brand Y, who turn out to be owned by the same group of corrupt Republicans anyway. You know they even have a boot camp for reporters getting ready to go to Syria. It's so they can brainwash them into telling us what the government wants us to hear. You just can't be somebody. A person just can't make a difference anymore." She let her fingers trickle down his neck to the rigid armor of his leather jacket. "You know what just occurred to me while I was coming home on the subway thinking about that movie I just watched?" He grabbed her hand and kissed it. "The Catholic church was the first multinational corporation. Just think about it. All these asshole churches opening up in South America like McDonalds in Tibet, only a thousand years earlier. India even has a space program...It's the Kali Yuga. The goddamn Kali Yuga. The age of darkness. Feed the Pope and Mullahs poison meat, not the pit bulls. And then the Chinese... _Manchurian Fucking Mitre_ \- what's next? _Kung Fu Vatican_? The sequel of the Apocalypse, or what?"

He took a CD out of its jewel case and slipped it into the CD player. In seconds the room filled up with the opening bars of a tango. He slid his hands around her hips and smiled, his lips suddenly spread out like the handlebars of a Harley. His thin black beard was almost touching her breasts when he pulled her even closer and undid her bathrobe.

"What's this?" she asked beguilingly as he pressed his pelvis against her thigh.

"You know full well what it is," he replied. "And it's all yours."

He lifted her up off her feet and carried her to her bedroom, dropping her on the king size bed directly under the poster of Astrix and Obelix she had hanging next to the window. She got it for her tenth birthday, a time she still associated with innocence and wonder. Mace stroked her hair gently and smiled. "I've been waiting all day for this," he said.

"So have I," she replied in a compliant tone she knew he liked.

As they made love all she could do was think about what had brought them together and why they were still together. Laura liked Mace, but she wasn't sure she loved him. In fact, if there was one thing she was sure of, it was that she didn't love him. You couldn't love someone like Mace. It just didn't happen. Mace came over, screwed your brains out, smoked a few cigarettes, drank a few glasses of whiskey and left. What he did outside of those intimate moments in her apartment she didn't really know. She wasn't the type of woman to check up on her lover. He had a job in at an auto dealer's in Brooklyn and just referred to it as "that fucking hole". Where were you? "I was at that fucking hole." What are you doing tomorrow? "I'm fucking well going to that fucking hole, where the fuck do you think I'm going, fucking Babylon?" One time she tried to call him during the day and asked if she could come by and meet him for lunch. She was going to Brooklyn to sell some advertising to a low budget appliance company and thought it would be fun to meet. He had always told her never to call him at work, but gave her the number just in case of some emergency. When she called the line was disconnected. She guessed it was just some number he had made up to make her think he had a real job. But she didn't care. He never had any money and was living for the most part on her handouts. He was probably just too ashamed to admit he didn't have a real job. But even if he didn't have a real job, Mace was real. He had served time. Real time. People like Stork might one day serve time, but it would be a different kind of time. Phony time. Money time. Rolex time. Not for real crimes, but for things like fraud and tax evasion. When Mace went to jail it was always for something _real_. Once he did six months for punching out his boss at a car dealership for trying to sell an old lady a lemon. Another time he did three years for selling cocaine to a corporate executive that turned out to be a cop in disguise. There was even a third time, but he never told her what it was for. All she knew was that it happened when he was a teenager back home in the Dakotas around the time he bought his first motorcycle and stopped living with his parents because they were always fighting and throwing beer bottles at each other. He said he would tell her what he did one day, but that day hadn't yet come and when it did she would be the first to know. She had a feeling it was serious, _really serious_ , but she didn't care. All that mattered was that he had served time. Wasn't everyone really serving time in the end? Didn't time always strut around town walking into all the best restaurants expecting to be waited on hand and foot? Didn't time always make you wait? Didn't it? So it was about time that people got wise to time, she thought. But as soon as you were wise to time, it would slip away from you and in a matter of moments you'd realize you didn't have the time to chase after it and everything was almost up...for good.

Mace pushed Laura down on the bed and stepped backwards. The sound of the Cinzano Tango Orchestra filled the apartment. Laura thought she could see a the wink of a soft pink light on Mace's face as he twirled her around, tossing off his jacket and shirt like a bullfighter striking full pose. And when he came down on her, she could think of only one thing: Byzantium.

### Chapter 1.3

Gregory Walden flipped his Mont Blanc fountain pen back and forth between the fingers of his right hand, trying to see how many times he could go without dropping it. When he finally convinced himself he could go on forever, like a notch-lapel Energizer Bunny taking on Kronos himself in some trans-dimensional boxing ring, he decided it was time for a new and even greater challenge and so tried balancing the pen on the largest knuckle of his index finger. This time it fell to the table immediately, eliciting laughter from around the table. Sitting directly across from him was Terry Henderson, the head executive from Dimex Incorporated. Henderson was a true _Terry_ , conservative yet soft-spoken, and never too stiff to occasionally show off the boyish streak he honed to perfection in the Ivy League. With his voluminous C.V. he was _Forbes_ cover material to a T and always dressed the part: never appearing in public without a white collar and black tie and always equipped with an emergency shoehorn no matter how impromptu the meeting. With his hushed oboe baritone he was never short of a revelation to listen to, but often left Gregory wishing he would show off just a little more of that Yale rowing club bravado and a little less of the Upper East Side CEO he had cultivated since moving to New York over a decade ago.

Gregory picked up the Mont Blanc and set it neatly beside the stack of notes he had carefully prepared the night before. Junk Bonds went out with _Duran Duran_ and all those freaky eighties hairstyles. Naked Shorts were old hat and did just that: they sold you short because the best you could do was double your money, while going long had infinite upside. No surprise they went out in the thirties with zoot suits and were only brought back by the Republicans for a few crazy years before everyone woke up. Deep in his heart Gregory knew they would one day come back, like everything else, but the time was not yet ripe. Not until he saw an army of zoot suits strutting down Madison Avenue mooning the cavalcade of TV journalists would he proclaim the brave new dawn of Naked Shorts 2.0. Collateralized debt obligations - the infamous CDO bonds from the sub-prime mortgage collapse - were wiped out by Obama like bugs on a carwash windshield. A thousand heaps of shit mortgages were somehow supposed to be worth more than a thousand heaps of shit mortgages when bundled together into a huge mountain of shit mortgages well on their way to becoming a huge mountain of shit foreclosures. Those few smart enough to bet against the hype by taking out credit defaults swaps - essentially like taking out a life insurance policy on someone everyone thought was healthy but only you knew was going to die - made trillions. Internet stocks either crashed before 9/11 or were too overvalued to even consider. And what about the new mobile App wave? Just the Internet with a Halloween mask. But a mixture of money and the Internet, where finance met Facebook, so to speak, that was different. That was new. The Internet was the center stage of the _New Finance_. Money had always been an abstraction anyway. Gold coins were only a symbol of something greater and more ethereal. That's why different cultures have always expressed money in so many different ways. To Aboriginals it was beaver pelts, to pirates it was chests of gold and silver, and to drug cartels it was cocaine and assault rifles. No matter what you said, they were all just symbols of the wealth and power.

"And what is this so-called _New Finance_?" Henderson cleared his throat and asked. When Henderson was in a meeting he always spoke in rounded and indirect statements, never revealing his true opinion on anything. That was why he was so important to the success of the venture. That's why Gregory needed him on board. To make it in the world of finance you always had to temper your comments, free them from the realm of emotion and opinion: in short, you had to speak like an abacus.

"Money is like a liquid or a gas," Gregory replied as he opened his palms in a gesture of acceptance. "It flows freely and you can never capture its true essence. But maybe you can push this whole analogy even further. If money is indeed a fluid, maybe money is the true ether, the one the nineteenth century physicists were always sniffing around for...but then again, if money is the ether maybe like the ether it doesn't even exist at all. Ha! That would be something. That _is_ something. Money flies through our lives like some kind of Tinker Bell or Peter Pan touching us with its magic whenever it shines down upon us. And after that one taste we end up chasing it for the rest of our lives. But what is it, _really_?"

"Very amusing. But money has always been backed by something," Henderson countered. "It is not so vaporous as you think. Every country has a gross national product, an economy, a reserve of commodities and precious metals that has a certain trade value with respect to goods from every other country. That is money."

"Perhaps that was once true," Gregory countered. "But the Great Depression changed everything. What about junk bonds? What about synthetic CDOs? What about Enron and round trip energy sales? Remember _Get Shorty_? And what makes the Enron case so beautiful is that they were selling _energy_ \- another invisible and ethereal quantity - to all of California when they were also buying it back from all of California. A grand sum of nothing amounting to nothing, but when you added up all the business at the end of the day, somehow it created something. Zero minus zero was something, and that's where we fit in."

Henderson betrayed a glimmer of anticipation as he lit the tip of his cigar and blew an expanding hoop of smoke across the room. It sailed to the far wall and dissipated into nothingness on impact. Beautiful nothingness.

"I like your idea," he said. "But I need to hear more."

"Don't worry. I've thought this through with the precision of a scientist. Money has momentum, extension, acceleration, and mass. It even has a half-life. E = MC2! And what does M stand for? Money! I think the creation of a common currency in Europe is just a start. After that money will be obsolete and it will only exist as magnetic data – small patterns of magnetic domains – on a series of plastic cards or hard drives in the cloud. And to monitor its ebb and flow, to follow its silvery comet's tail through the night sky, we will need the Internet. That's why Internet banks are the way forward. Right now the Internet is nothing but a cosmic pool of sex and scandals, news and terror. But ultimately it will be the only way we have of tracing and tracking money. In its perfect union, the false flesh of paper money and coins sublated to the transcendent beauty of the abstract world of Java script and modems from which an entirely new form of banking will emerge. This is the _New Finance_. A nebulous postmodern arena designed so money can swim and breed as freely as flesh can fornicate in a brothel. Forget porn sites. Forget on-line gambling. Forget live family beatings and internet weddings. Enter the _New Finance_."

"Bank sites are ubiquitous. This is nothing new. How do you expect..."

"But this is more."

"More?" Henderson tented his eyebrow with doubt.

"Yes. I'm talking about getting rid of hard currency altogether. Bitcoin and Ethereum are only the beginning. So what if Bitcoin has a limited supply - it doesn't _do_ anything. And Ethereum is for teenage devs with unicorn tee shirts. I am talking about something even bigger. Get in on the bottom floor and ride that lovely elevator all the way up to heaven!"

Henderson grinned with a hint of compliance. "But we'll need investors. A bank is nothing without capital. A bank needs money to make money."

"And that's why we have to be the first to patent the idea of a bank that exists solely on the Internet. Its holdings will consist of pledges and promissory statements from corporate and private investors – numbers transcribed from magnetic bits and sub-bits – and its profit margins will be etched out of interest from these virtual loans. And don't confuse this with your mom and pop establishments with real offices and real tellers that just let you do all your banking on the Internet. What I am talking about is much more profound. Just as we must leave our bodies and ascend to heaven or fall into the pits of Hell, money must also return to its rarefied roots in the cosmic consciousness of the internet!"

Gregory threw his notes up in the air and watched as the pages spiraled to the floor like giant leaves in an autumn wind. Then he picked the pages up one at a time and arranged them in a neat stack on the floor in front of him. When he looked up to where Henderson had been sitting, there was no one. Control and chaos. It was at the basis of everything. But that was why he knew Henderson would be back. Gregory's ideas had seeped in just enough to scare him away. And weren't people always afraid of what they needed the most? Gregory adjusted the lapel of his freshly dry-cleaned Bertoni suit and craned his neck up to the window just in time to watch a young woman wearing a large floppy hat chasing and Irish Wolfhound across the street. New York was filled with such scenes. It was a tapestry of the day-to-day lifted to the level of the sublime.

Gregory neatly placed the stack of papers in his briefcase and exhaled. It had seemed like only a week ago that he was first hired at Chastworth Consolidated. He could still remember the double cognac they poured him at Selbey's after he signed the acceptance forms. The room was glittering with an almost supernatural light and every woman was bathed in the honey-warm scent of a different, but equally enchanting, perfume. _Eux de Bastille_ (a deep red bottle shaped like a guillotine, smelling of musk and death with subtle metallic overtones from the boar's blood it was apparently spiked with), _Apoca-Lips Now_ (rich and thick with heavy water and over a hundred different pheromones, both naturally occurring and man-made: it was so powerful and risqué that the ads claimed the orgasms it spurred on could register on a Geiger counter), and _Back Alley Sally_ (sold in a bottle the shape of a woman's hips, each one individualized by a shaft of some rock star's hair floating at the bottom like the worm in a tequila bottle) were just a few of the scents he was sure he could identify with his razor sharp olfactory skills. He was an expert in the finer things in life: food, wine, art, music, women's (and men's) fashion, fountain pens, and interior decorating were just a few paltry crumbs fallen from the grand federal reserve of his personal expertise.

Gregory picked up his suitcase and walked to the elevator. Its brushed aluminum doors opened without a sound and he stepped in. He pressed "M" and waited as the doors slid shut and the elevator moved effortlessly to the first floor as though gravity itself had momentarily switched off to ease its ascent. He thought of Charlie's great glass elevator as he stepped out into the massive marble lobby, and how nice it would be to swim in a world of chocolate where cubes and spheres were one and there was always a sweet mother leaning over you to tuck you in before you went to bed.

Chastworth was one of the most influential investment firms in the world. When they made public announcements, earthquakes rocked through Central America; reports of torrential rains filled the world's newspapers and dictators were overthrown or even assassinated. When they announced their year-end losses or gains the S & P 500 plummeted or mooned in perfect synch as though attached to Chastworth by an invisible string. When the news erupted with rumors of a merger or takeover congressmen committed suicide and farmers from all corners of the globe declared bankruptcy. When they hired new executives or advisors, like that stupendous night back at Selbey's when Gregory first inked his employment contract, astronomers reported sunspots and clairvoyants declared the beginning of a new zodiacal age. It was a firm of unquestionable influence, aptly located in a vast monolith of glass, rock, and steel that towered over virtually every building in Manhattan, if not the world, as it cast an ominous shadow that moved like the finger of a great sundial over all the boroughs of New York's Greater Metropolitan area. Gregory had now worked at Chastworth's for seven years to the day, seven years of good luck and prosperity during which he was promoted exactly seven times. Seven was God's number. Already he was the central financial advisor for the Credit Lyonais "Starlight" account, an embryonic mass of credit and capital with tentacles reaching out into every continent on the planet. It was his job to keep an eye on it and make sure it kept an eye on everything else. That was one thing people never knew. Financial accounts were alive and possessed their own unique brand of consciousness. You had to treat them well for them to treat you well. Poorly managed accounts ran away like dogs from their abusive masters, snapping and yelping their sharp recriminations as they drooled financial losses from their gaping mouths, while well-managed accounts were bouncing little puppies wagging their eager tails as they peed the golden ingots of profit margins all over your office floor.

Gregory fawned over his radiant gold watch, admiring for a moment the way the slender elegant hand ticked in perfect rhythm around the diamond-studded walkway that charted its daily course. A Maserati zipped past him and the tails of his coat blew open in the slipstream. He held out his hand and waved like a conductor ushering in the horn section at the Philharmonic and a cab stopped suddenly in front of him. The driver - an obese Samoan chewing on a wad of tobacco - rolled down the window.

"Uptown," Gregory answered the driver's unspoken question.

"Get in," the man woofed. Gregory opened the door and was assaulted by a wall of body odor and day-old food.

"What are you doing in here, breeding horses?" Gregory quipped. He closed the door and the cab roared into the traffic.

The driver snorted and coughed. "What was that?" he asked. "I'm a bit deaf."

"Indeed," Gregory whispered under his breath. "Nothing. I didn't say anything."

The car accelerated around a wobbling egg truck - its white paint scraped off in several places to reveal a dense layer of rust - and barely avoided hitting an elderly woman who was jaywalking as she hugged a large bag of groceries against her chest.

"Damn woman," the cab driver said. "If there is one thing that driving in this city teaches you, it's how to avoid them. When I first started driving I had just divorced my wife. I thought it would be a great opportunity to meet more girls. Where else do you get to sit alone with a woman for long enough to have a casual conversation? An elevator? An operating table? A confession booth?"

"I've never looked at it that way," Gregory said with introspection, wondering what it would be like to confess to a female priest - did they even have them yet? "But now that you mention it, you may be on to something." In all his years in finance Gregory had always considered driving a cab as an occupation tailor made for the chronically unlucky and permanently talentless. Cab drivers got shot. Cab drivers made very little money and worked barbaric hours that weren't conducive to any level of finer thought let alone meeting the best women, if any at all. And Uber was even worse. Yet there it was. Standing right before him. A new perspective. Perhaps not as grand and far reaching as the _New Finance_ , but not without its beige shades of profundity. Perhaps in his next life he would consider taxi driving as a means of supporting himself through business school - if indeed it ever came to that - with an eye on meeting rich women to pay his tuition.

"I always say to people that a cab driver is the best occupation," the driver continued. "Even at some Downtown art opening I bet I could chat the pants off of any girl faster than all those queer movie stars and rock singers in their ballet pants. Those guys never have anything to say."

The cab stopped suddenly and Gregory paid the driver, giving him twenty dollars for a ten-dollar ride. It was gems of wisdom like this one that made life in New York all the more exciting, all the more explosive.

"Thanks," the driver said.

Gregory smiled and stepped out into the vastness of New York as it spilled out from the mouth of his luxurious French granite apartment block. It was five in the afternoon and playtime had not even started.

### Chapter 1.4

Laura clipped her fingernails as she sat alone in a dark corner at Selbeys nursing her second Gin and Tonic. Outside a crowd had nuzzled around a performance artist who was dancing in a silver-coated blazer while juggling five avocados and balancing a burning torch on his tongue. A man from the crowd threw a beer bottle at the feet of the performer, who continued his act as though nothing had happened. A second man, not to be outdone, set fire to a pile of newspapers on the sidewalk. A fringe crowd broke away from the main body and surrounded the burning heap. Slowly and anemically the small crowd started chanting something vague and ominous, like members of a Satanic mob. Although the scene was mildly unsettling, New York was filled with so many others just like it that Laura had become numbed beyond reaction. So many people in Manhattan, it seemed, lived and died entire lives of excess. They drank, they smoked, they ate too much, they spent more money than they had, they drove too fast, they had secret liaisons with secret lovers in even more secret hotel rooms. Excess was everywhere. It was a universal truth. Yet as Laura sat there staring into the ice cubes in her glass as though somewhere in their cascade of reflections lay a hidden prophetic message, a much bigger truth entered her mind: there were simply too many people. Just too many people. And they were all living lives of excess, forbearance, moderation, balance, piety, or despair –whatever they chose or had been chosen for them. An excess of people living an excessive existence. One giant crowd of them. And everyone thought by virtue of their own unique excess they were somehow being different. But they were really doing exactly what everyone else was doing. In the end the individual didn't matter. Mace was right. Everyone said there was too much poverty and violence in the world. But Laura knew better. These were just symptoms of a much bigger problem. There were just too many people. That was the blight. It was demoralizing to think that there might be a God somewhere that actually cared enough to watch over every last one of them as they strutted down Broadway behind their self-important shield of designer shoes and bags. And that was only the tip of the iceberg. There was Brooklyn and Queens to worry about as well. Add to that the rest of New York State, America, and Europe, not to mention India and China, and then you had as many people as there were molecules of alcohol in her glass, every last one of whom had feelings and aspirations that somehow made them special in the universe. The thought terrified her.

A sudden sense of vertigo overcame her and she pushed away her unfinished drink. Whoever had decided that Gin and Tonic should be mixed was some brand of evil genius. She tried to regain her sense of balance, but with every new person that gathered outside - sheltered beneath their dark satin umbrellas and chanting along with the crowd - she felt that much further away from God, like an older child alienated from her parents by a new birth in the family. Sure, they were just as deserving as she of a place beside her rank ambivalent God, but that was the precisely the problem: if it really was _her_ God, maybe she was more deserving after all. She didn't know the answer. She looked up from her drink and once again focused on the scene outside. The weather had finally made the crowd dissipate with the rain now storming down like an army of Saracens, slicing away at the pavement and windows with all its fury. With every thrashing scimitar she felt a new wound open up inside her and with every person that walked away a new seed of angst burst open inside her. And it hurt more than she could bear.

By the time Halo arrived it was almost eleven. The rain had eased and the bar was clearing out into the cold drizzle of the night. He walked up from behind and set his hand on her shoulder. She turned around to find him standing there monk-like with a covert smile. There was a thin film of rainwater shining on his forehead. He looked altogether more composed than the man she had met the night before.

"I'm sorry," he said demurely. "You look like you've been waiting a while."

"No worries," she said. His presence calmed her, like a warm blanket in an empty Newark motel room.

"May I join you?" He tapped his umbrella on the floor to shake off the few remaining drops of rain.

"Most certainly," she said with an elegance that surprised her. She had almost forgotten how polite and refined she could be. Life had an unnerving way of making you forget who you once were and what you were capable of. "Yes," she added. "Please do."

He took the seat across the table and took off his raincoat, folding it back against the chair behind him. A waiter nudged up to the table and righted his posture as though to invite them to order.

"Lagavulin," Halo said. "No ice."

"Double?" asked the waiter.

"Yes," said Halo, looking over to Laura for an alternate suggestion that never came. "That will be fine." The waiter turned abruptly and walked towards the kitchen.

"Did you find a nice hotel?" she asked.

"Hotel?" He seemed confused for a moment. "Oh, yes," he said. "Of course."

"You look well rested." She paused and examined his features. His lips were thin, almost red in color, and his cheekbones shallow, but well defined. He looked like many British men she had seen on television. England was not a place she had been to, but from her punk rock tutelage with Johnny Enzyme she always imagined she had spent enough figurative time there to voice a meaningful opinion.

"You look troubled," he said.

"Troubled?" She wondered what he could possibly mean. Maybe he had noticed something hidden in her expression, some hint of inner dissatisfaction that she had been carrying with her all night that everyone in the bar could see as plainly as if she had a bird nesting on her head.

"Maybe it's just me getting used to New York again. It's been a few years since I've been here. People here seem more tense and angry than in England."

"Tense and angry?"

"Or at least that's how they see things. Whenever something bad happens in England it's immediately blamed on America. If there's a murder or an outbreak of gang violence, they always say that it was American television or Hollywood that was ultimately to blame."

"But who is to blame for America?" she asked defiantly. "Certainly not the Spanish. They still have the quest for Eldorado on their conscience." She laughed ironically.

Halo smiled as though he was interviewing her for an important job and was pleased with her response. The rain had intensified once again, creating an uneven veil over the windows that made looking outside seem like peering through a sheet of ice. She felt its dark weight inside her spreading through her limbs like the beginnings of sleep. A cab pulled up to the door, only barely visible as a smeared yellow streak bathed in the light of its own white headlights.

"Tell me," he said. He reached at her hand to touch it and she pulled it away. "Laura, tell me, what are you here for?" His eyes deepened - a buoy tossed out to her in the waves. She wanted to reach out and hold on.

"Here?" She knew what he meant but feigned ignorance.

"In New York. In your job. Your life. You know, just in general."

She shrugged her shoulders and looked askance. She was betraying Mace by even pondering such a question. It suggested she was unhappy with herself, and if she was, Mace might somehow be to blame. In a _Village Voice_ poll an overwhelming majority said they would change their lover over their job or city if they felt they had to escape from something in order to overcome depression. She imagined Mace sitting alone in jail still dressed in his black leather jacket and pants waiting for a guard to escort him to the prison cafeteria for supper. Was he really freer now that he was out? Perhaps he had waited for what must have seemed like an eternity only to find he had climbed out of one hell and into another.

"I guess you must wonder what this is all about," he said with a gentle sense of purpose.

"No," she said defensively. "I have not wondered once."

"You don't have to be so difficult. What do you think? That I'm here as some kind of angel of doom sent to bring your life down in flames?"

"I never thought anything of the sort."

He leaned forward and grabbed her hand. "Why are we meeting? Why am I here? Why are you here?" His face tightened, revealing crow's feet at the outer corners of each eye.

"Let me get something clear," she said firmly. "I didn't come here only to meet you. I'm a regular and come here a few times a week. And don't think you're the first man I've met here either. What makes you so special? I've shut this place down with Germans, Asians, artists, doctors, lawyers..."

He let her hand slide back and under the table.

"You are a very attractive woman. I'm sure you could shut this place down with any number of handsome gentlemen. But that is neither here nor there. Lest there be any further misunderstandings, I'm going to have to get to the point. When I saw you last night I couldn't help but think that you were somehow unhappy with your life and that you wished you were doing something else. I could see it in your eyes that you secretly detest all the men that come in here with all their endless talk of stock options, secretarial gropings, and holiday resorts in Florida. You come from, I imagine, a modest background and have many times in your life aspired to escape your normality through some diversion. Maybe it started with university. A place you never quite felt at home in. Am I right?"

"I think you're talking too loudly," she said. Halo nodded as though to signal to her that he took her divergent complaint as a tacit form of agreement.

"And I feel you have had several lovers, most of whom are utterly different from yourself. In short, you crave _difference_ , in the most abstract sense of the word, but every form of this silent rebellion that you allowed into your life has ultimately been wrong, has ultimately lacked substance or purpose. You are tumbling blindly through your life desperately reaching out to anything that makes you feel like you are escaping from whatever it is that you are afraid will bolt you down – forever."

"An impressive analysis," she said. "But don't you think that if you said such a thing to anybody on the street you would end up hitting a nerve of truth just by chance? I think everyone feels the same destitution underneath it all. That's what it means to live in the twenty first century." The image of Johnny Enzyme entered her mind. He was wearing a silver blazer exactly like the performance artist, yet he was naked underneath and was shouting out the word "No" with such anger that she shivered inside.

"That may be so, but what I just said involves you and only you, so why bring the rest of the world into it? And besides, don't you think that any of those people out in the street you mention, that feel the same sense of emptiness as you, would do something about it if they could?"

"I don't think so. I think people are weak and when given the chance to change for the better they never will."

"Are you so sure? Remember that a starving man won't riot until you give him bread."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Perhaps these people," he looked around the room and then looked back at Laura. " _These people_ , who keep coming back into our conversation for some reason but don't seem to be anywhere in sight, just don't have the strength..."

"Precisely," Laura said emphatically. "That is what I said to begin with. They are weak."

"But if given encouragement..." The lights from the chandeliers seemed to take on am otherworldly golden hue, reflecting off the varnished wood of the table and illuminating his face. He adjusted his cufflink and cleared his throat. "Perhaps in this day and age the great are just being ushered around by the ears while the mediocre lead the way. Maybe the weak are really the strong just hiding in the fold."

"The best lack all conviction," she said solemnly.

"Yes," he said. He seemed suddenly irritated and looked down at his watch. "This is all very interesting and I'd love to take it up with you someday, but I'm afraid we're already meandering away from the point of what I wanted to say."

"Which is?" she asked with slight irritation, as it seemed like he was the one who had pushed the conversation into empty speculation to begin with.

"I'll be more blunt, Laura." His expression hardened. "I work in a branch of the secret service whose purpose it is to investigate irregular patterns of cash flow around the world. Do you know how difficult it is for a country to keep track of all the money laundering that goes on..."

"In other words you're some kind of federal agent." She shook her head in disbelief. "I should have known."

"No," he said. "Not at all. The FBI has nothing to do with this. Anything that involves more than just a simple one-step arrest within the borders of the United States is usually way over their heads. What I am talking about is much deeper and more complex."

Laura watched the glow of golden light from the chandelier bloom on his face. What could she possibly have to do with whatever it was he was talking about? All this business about money and international conspiracies sounded like something out of a prime time Fox News broadcast. Something involving a foreign insurrection would probably be his next pitch. And why was he singling her out? She didn't even work in finance. She just came to Selbey's because it was around the corner and the kind of men that usually hung out there wouldn't be interested in her to begin with. Her clutch wasn't from Saks and they could probably smell from a mile away all her wild nights back in Portland trailer parks with clouds of whiskey hovering over her thin mask of cheap perfume. No, she wasn't one of _them_. But that was precisely why she could have a drink and be left in peace.

"Money? I suppose you want me to do something for you. I imagine that that was what this was all about from the very beginning. Why didn't you just put an ad in the Times asking for an unmarried woman with some experience in finance willing to turn in all her friends?" She stood up and turned abruptly. "You'll have to excuse me."

"Wait," he said as she walked towards the passage to the bathrooms by the far wall. But she had already slipped away between two older men in dark blue pea coats that were holding brandy glasses to their lips as though toasting some great naval triumph. Halo watched their eyes follow her as she disappeared down the hall.

The bathroom was cramped, but clean. The walls were paneled in dark mahogany and old Parisian cabaret posters hung on either side of a large mirror towering over the sink. She looked carefully at her reflection. Her face seemed more youthful, yet also more weatherworn than she had remembered it. She felt she was looking at a child who hadn't slept in three days. Her eyes were sagging but at the same time filled with an innocent blue. Was this the same vulnerable person that Halo had just faced a moment ago? Had he also noticed this precious blend of weakness and naiveté? She took a step back and straightened her sloping shoulders. Suddenly she felt stronger and more secure. What was she thinking? Since when was she the type to let a man get the better of her? What did she have to be afraid of?

The door opened and a slender Asian woman wearing a pair of garish blue plastic earrings walked past her to one of the two toilet stalls and smiled. She was done up like the usual finance interns that came through from the west cost to get experience on Wall Street and ended up getting used and discarded a few months later. There were a thousand Gary Condits lurking out there in every walk of life. Laura shook her head and looked back into the mirror, narrowing her eyes in a way that made her look more assertive and impenetrable. She counted on a set of mental fingers all the men that were more dangerous than Halo with whom she had been involved and came out unscathed. There were at least four that she could remember, and Mace was not one of them.

When she returned to the table Halo was sitting like some kind of Buddhist shrine, his hands folded together beneath his chin. There was a votive calm in his face as he began to speak.

"This isn't about sex, you know. Although I have to admit, there's nothing more ravishing than a woman from a country at war..."

"At war?"

"Aren't those the words of your own president?"

"Yes. But what does any of this have to do with sex?"

"There's a combination of power and vulnerability in the eyes of a woman from a warring nation that is the very essence of sex."

"And you see this in me?"

"It's all over you. You exude it."

"Maybe I'm just at war with myself," she said in remonstration. She pressed her lips together and swallowed, realizing she might have provided him with an excuse to dig further.

"Perhaps," he said. "But that is precisely why I came back."

"What is precisely why?" she demanded. While she was sitting in front of him she might as well get to the pith of the matter.

"There's a certain individual that we've been concerned with for many years. He's suspected of fraud in four countries but no one has been able to gather enough hard evidence to build a case for conviction. He works for a finance firm on Wall Street and is known to be a bit of a - what is the term you use in America? – Lady's man? Playboy?"

"And what do you expect me to do about it? Do I look like a cop? And what does it matter if he's a "playboy" as you say? Was that meant to make it all the _juicier_ for me? I really don't know what you take me for."

"My apologies. It wasn't my intention to make any such intimations. It was just that you seem to be known here, at least in these circles. I guess I am sorely mistaken." He gestured out towards the rest of the restaurant.

"Circles? What do circles have to do with anything? Do you think that just because I come in here by myself a few times a week that I'm some kind of whore that can be thrown into some international conspiracy to get whatever information you need? I'm a woman of substance and pride and why should I lower myself..."

"I'm sorry," he said delicately. "I thought you would be perfect. It was just an idea I had last night. You seem to have a certain charm and spark about you that set my mind reeling. Last night I stayed up in my hotel room imagining you with this man, attending his parties, going to dinner with him. It seemed like a perfect match. Yet I also struggled with myself, as I realized I had no right to cast you in such a role without even asking you how you felt or knowing who you really were."

"So you see me walking through his house, hand in hand, looking over my shoulder whenever he turns away, searching for some shred of information that might help you pin him down? Is this your _vision_?" She smiled coldly with her teeth clenched tightly together.

Halo looked down at his hands and started scratching the table lightly with his index finger. He looked embarrassed to have brought the conversation as far as he had.

"We all have flights of the imagination from sometime." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card. "This is my e-mail address back in the UK. I check my mail every day, even when I'm abroad. Let's just forget about this and you can e-mail me if you want to see me again. I enjoyed talking to you and hope to see you again. Please, do forget I ever brought this up. You are a woman of decency and honor and it brings me only shame to have sullied your reputation."

He stood up and walked out the door before Laura could respond. As she watched his figure fade into the rainy night, she wondered if she had not overreacted. She opened her cigarette box and pulled out a Du Maurier and lit it. Her eyes followed the coils of smoke dancing and twisting in front of her like some kind of private Cirque du Soleil spectacle meant only for her own personal diversion and entertainment. For the first time that evening she was aware of the pianist in the room; he must have been playing for at least an hour. The notes almost seemed to freeze in midair like snowflakes before melting away into nothingness.

As she walked home, maneuvering through the multitudes of concentric ringlets etched by the slowing raindrops into the miniature streams and puddles that flowed together before vanishing on the sidewalks, she pondered over the implications of their conversation. What had Halo meant by "nation at war" and what sort of proposal had he made to her? Although she could never imagine herself being romantically involved with him, she had to admit there was something in his words that promised to lift her life out of its ordinary rut if she ever had the courage to follow them. It would give her entire existence new shape and form, sublimating her coronation as _the first woman of the twenty first century_ and uniting her once and for all in eternity with Johnny Enzyme, the Great Performer and only true lover of Laura Chain, the wild and reckless teenager from a trailer park in Portland. But was he really to be trusted, and what exactly did he want her to do?

By the time she got home she had already snapped out of her self-indulgent reverie. She opened her door and greeted the familiar smell of her apartment. It had its usual clean, yet nonetheless cozy scent that always made her feel calm inside. Dirty rooms always made her nervous, as did overly septic rooms. Like everything, it was a question of balance. As she took off her shoes she reflected once again, although this time disparagingly, on Halo's bizarre proposal, as though the comfort of her living room had suddenly awoken her to Halo's potential treachery. Anyone who fought against global money laundering was probably just some failed banker who was jealous because he wasn't smart enough to cheat the system himself. This made him little more than an international tax investigator, an occupation no better than a disaster lawyer or narcotics agent.

She punched a number into her cell phone and quickly turned the radio on to a soft jazz station. The phone rang three times before Mace answered.

"Just a second," he said. He was panting. "I was practicing my technique. It's hard to dance with a broom, you know."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'll call back."

"Where were you?"

"I went out."

"Why?"

"It was a business dinner."

She heard a siren wailing in the distance and it immediately made her think of Halo and where he might have gone and if he had made it back to his hotel safely.

"I'm coming over in half an hour," he said.

She wanted to say no and explain how tired she was, but instead she said it was fine and that she would be waiting for him. She went into the bathroom and carefully examined herself in the mirror, searching for possible clues that might give the impression she had just been with a different man. She wasn't overdressed, but her hair was tied at the back, a style she rarely wore that was sure to make Mace immediately suspicious. She quickly undid her hair and ran her fingers through it several times to remove any kinks or folds that might still be remaining.

Outside the city had opened up like a great carnal flower reeking of death and pestilence. Somewhere out in all that chaos she imagined a nineteen sixty nine Oldsmobile was humming desperately in the darkness, smoke rising from its chiffon colored exhaust pipes as its driver waited for whatever menace or lover (at the end of the day, what was really the difference?) might come along and tap that expectant tap on its smoked wet windows. She heard a shout and then a sound like a sudden rush of steam from a hot iron press and suddenly she felt painfully average standing before the vast machinery of the Manhattan night. After all, her story was not unique - far from it. Not even with Halo stepping as if from nowhere directly into her most pivotal central chapter. Since when was he supposed to be in her book? But it happened all the time and that's what worried her the most. All over New York there were a thousand _Dishonored_ Marlene Dietrichs, each stepping out of the shadows to face that tall uniformed Austrian who had just asked some impropriety of her, apparently in the name of patriotism. And every last one of them was ready to deliver the same shocking message: she wasn't afraid of death and found life even more frightening. But it didn't stop there. There were also a thousand _Notorious_ Ingrid Bergmans, each one dying a slow and toxic death in a bed that wasn't theirs with a husband that wasn't even of their choosing. "Dishonored" was just a script, Joseph Von Sternberg's script, and "Notorious" Alfred Hitchcock's script, but each a dishonorable and notorious script nonetheless, spinning out a thousand Mata Haris a day, each one ready to die for some cause they didn't even believe in. Laura heard a steam whistle from somewhere in the distance and thought she could make out what looked like the outline of a dome and minaret rising above a ridge of warehouses somewhere in Queens or the Bronx. It was a building she had never noticed before. Byzantium. The night had swung into full motion. Its fearsome undertow was already more than she could take.

### Chapter 1.5

Gregory took a sip of XO Francois Voyer and spit out an olive pit onto the marble floor. What was _the_ defining moment of his life? the woman curled up on the sofa across the room had just asked him as she took a languorous draw from her cigarette and gently stroked Mazo, his Burmese cat. Although he had only met Francine that evening, she was rapidly becoming his number one obsession. He liked her small Russian nose and the rosewater blush of her cheeks just as much as her white-rimmed eyes, which radiated a pale energy all their own.

"That's a difficult question. Like the life of some subatomic particle that's been flying around space since the Big Bang, I've had so many defining moments that asking me to specify one above all the others would not be true to the record."

"Well, why don't you just list them all, then? I never said you had to pick only one."

"Doesn't _the_ usually mean _one_?"

"Maybe not this time. Maybe not for you."

"The Zen of subatomic particles where the one and the many are the same."

"Exactly."

He leaned back in his chair as the events of the day fluttered through his mind like autumn leaves blowing down a Parisian lane. First there was the sudden turnaround with Henderson. He had already apologized for his sudden exit at their last meeting, so Gregory had to do was twist his arm a little bit more and he would be onboard for sure. Henderson was a true gentleman, a Terry to end all Terries. It was a good thing that he was finally seeing the light. Gregory was no stranger to multi-billion dollar deals, but this one was going to be special. This one was destined for greatness. All he had to do was come up with a little more cash and then he'd be king pin at last. The finance world had celebrated Gregory many times before, but only as a bystander, an invisible source of money lurking somewhere in the credits after the curtains went down. This time it was going to be different. Maybe it would even lead to his very own national holiday one day. And this was only at the start of his long and productive day. After discussing the _New Finance_ with Henderson on the phone that afternoon, he did his usual Bikram Yoga session at the Moonlight Yoga Studio and then got a facial with the wonderful Quentin, a transgender model who recently retired from the catwalk to splash into the beauty business with his own line of skin products based on the mucous of sea urchins. With a bright new face he spent the rest of the afternoon mulling over the whitewater rush of investment opportunities that was surging through his i-phone daily. The only one that piqued his curiosity involved a new technology that used sensors on your mobile devices to gauge your mood by recording levels of pheromones in your breath in order to send the data back in real time to Google and Facebook. As the late afternoon sun sank behind the skyline out of view, he finished his work day by strutting down to the East Village in his spiffy new jacquard John Varvatos suit, studying the punkers and hippies, cheap coke spoons dangling around their neck and patchwork hairdos like benthic fish on chemotherapy. If there was one thing he hated it was cheap jewelry. Nobody could say that the East Village wasn't on the vanguard of cheap jewelry. They came from all four corners of the globe to sell the shit. Israeli hippies (did they have their own version of Haight Ashbury peering over all the rubble and falafel stands?), Chinese hippies, Urdu hippies, even Pigmy hippies. And then there were the skinheads: even they sold cheap jewelry here, chunky little accessories like electroplated swastika rings and plastic SS amulets. But in spite of all the Nazi paraphernalia, mood rings, day-glow tattoos and seashell necklaces, Gregory loved the East Village. There was more energy, more _zap_ than there was anywhere else in New York outside of the stock exchange. One day these hippies might even have their own stock exchange. Red Lebanese up three points on morning trading. Black African on a bull. Maybe one day sooner than you think. And when it did, Gregory was sure to get in on the ground floor.

After finishing his ceremonial strut through the East village, Gregory caught a cab at the corner of Bleaker and Bowery, like many great rock stars must have done after delivering watershed performances at CBGBs, and headed straight for Swinburgs. It was his favorite dinner spot this month and it had been at least two days since his last celebration. When he stepped out of the cab a light haze of perfume wafted through the air like an invitation to a Persian orgy. That was New York. That was why he was here. That's why he would never leave. People like his old colleagues Crawford and Smith had bailed out of what they called "the whole American thing" years ago after the dot com crash and ended up selling retro-Louis XIV shacks to Algerians in rural Paris. But not him. He stuck it out through the nineties and two thousands when everyone else was either sizing down or rediscovering the skateboard. He was a true American and was proud of it.

The air inside of Swinburgs was surprisingly stuffy given its reputation for having the best air conditioning in New York, installed only last year to nurse their prodigious wine collection. He took his seat and waited for his date, a woman named Darcy Jones he had met three days ago at a conceptual art show in the West Village, but just as the waiter seated him at a table for two and handed him a menu she called and cancelled: something about a last minute art show in Tokyo she just couldn't miss. It was most certainly a lie but at least he had to give her credit for originality. Of all the times he'd been stood up he had never heard something so classy. _My rare tropical fish just died and I am now in mourning...I just got invited to my sister's prom after her date called in sick...my refrigerator needs new Freon or the caribou steaks I just had flown in from Alaska will spoil_...he had heard it all before, but an art show in Tokyo - that was original, that deserved credit, and that had left him alone. The sad and wondrous New York condition: to always be alone and waiting.

But as luck would have it a glamorous new beauty walked in just as he was about to walk out and hit the nearest dial-in martini bar for a change of scene. She was a plate of jasmine and jumping shrimp if there ever was one and had _available_ written all over her. She took a seat at the table beside him. After a few surreptitious glances punctuated with a few hands swiping hair back behind the ears and a few halves of a smile, she finally turned her head to say "hello" and that was it.

"You can join me if you want," he had said. "You look stranded."

"I thought you might say something like that."

"I don't even know your name and you're already sniping at me."

"It wasn't a snipe. I was just sharing an observation. My date just lost his wallet on the Upper East Side and couldn't make it."

"And mine cancelled just a few minutes ago."

She picked up her menu and moved her coat to his table. "Francine," she said and offered her hand demurely.

"Gregory." He bowed his head politely. Darcy Jones was starting to look very ordinary as he imagined her boarding that make believe flight to Tokyo. "Spontaneity is underrated these days," he said. "Everyone seems to think that work is everything. Why work if it doesn't lead to some form of spontaneity? People in this society often confuse better life with more luxury items. That's the mistake. Hedonism is considered a bad thing, but acquiring senselessly large pieces of property and furnishing great mansions with antiques that nobody even removes the bubble wrap from because they're so damn expensive is considered noble. To what end?"

The waiter floated by their table and Gregory ordered a bottle of 1985 Romaneé Conti, which came almost immediately. Thousands would have waited another ten years to drink it, but Robert Parker was right. Drink it now before it dries out. It was from a vintage that was pretty in its youth, even prodigiously so, but said to be lacking in complexity. And that is where the aging came in. Just enough to let the _terroir_ express itself but not so much that the fruit shrank up to reveal the hidden tannins. So, if you wanted to catch a glimpse of its true mettle you had to act soon. That was the right thing to do and that was what he did. Gregory was known in many circles, at straight bars and gay bars alike, for doing the right thing. People from all walks of life relied on him for advice on the finest vintages, best restaurants, latest looks, and hottest new film releases every season. And as far as he was concerned the Romaneé Conti, dark purple in the center with a thin circle of amber already glowing around the rim, an alchemical fluid almost gaseous in its perfume and texture, was ready to go. It had a bouquet of violets and gingerbread with hints of hung meats and cardamom, an entry like liquid silk, a fat ripe mid-palate crammed with blackberries and junipers, and a whopping great peacock's tail of a finish that lasted almost five minutes. Starlight in a glass. Most beginnings were far less propitious. Most beginnings were really endings in disguise.

And that was only three hours ago. It seemed like longer, but that was New York for you. It was a city that compressed time. It squashed it. Einstein would have had a field day in New York, Gregory thought as he took Francine's hand and opened the cab door in front of the restaurant. She stepped in and that was it. She was his, and he was hers. The night had forced its hand and now they were alone, Francine lying naked in front of him on the couch with Mazo on her lap as he struggled to come up with at least a few defining moments in his cosmic legacy to satisfy her curiosity.

Francine's gaze darted around the room in wonder. There was a freestanding bathtub with gold fixtures and intricately carved feet in the center of the floor. There was a gigantic art deco chandelier hanging from the middle of the ceiling directly above the bathtub and the walls were decorated with great baroque mirrors and old rococo portraits.

"Everything is so beautiful," she whispered seductively.

"A man needs a playpen and the quality of the play depends largely on the quality of the pen. You see, nobody would want to come over and spend the night with me if I lived in a shack on the Lower East Side."

Francine stood up like a ballerina and stretched her arms upwards to the chandelier. Her breasts stretched with the skin of her chest and flattened out against her ribs in a way Gregory found both elegant and boyish.

"You're lucky, you know."

"Lucky?"

"Yes. You seem to have it all. You're wealthy, handsome..."

"And confused! That's the one thing nobody realizes. The more talent a man has, the more friends he has, the more complex his life becomes and the more people he can potentially let down or disappoint. Do you think Da Vinci was happy? Do you think Mussolini was happy? And what do you think about Bill Gates? He has so much money he can't stop donating it. Fortune becomes an addiction. A man is ruined by his own success. Blessings are a curse if they come too easily or too frequently. They sour you to life. When I was a little boy I used to sit in my room staring in rapt admiration at all the picture books on my shelf. In particular I used to love the ones showing men on horseback riding through the desert or some lush green valley. I thought one day I would grow up to become such a sleek and brilliant rider." He leapt up and started swinging his blanket around like a lasso. He looked down, noticing in a short-lived sliver of insecurity that his naked body looked pale and weak in the stark light from the chandelier. "A dark rider of the soul," he said emphatically. "A shadow on the back of a sleek and powerful gelding darting through the forests of the past."

"How wonderful!" she exclaimed with vivid curiosity as though she had just witnessed the birth of a new art form. "This adds a new dimension to everything."

"A new dimension?" He felt small for a moment, capturing a glimpse of what her words could imply. She must have taken him for shallow and insensitive and was surprised at his sudden play of feeling. So when he had pressed her up against the volcanic stone wall in his shower just an hour before and knelt down to kiss her vulva, she thought he was someone else. Someone cheap and low.

"You'd go home with anybody, wouldn't you?"

She looked confused. "What? Did I say something offensive?" She thrust her hand up in the air to grab the blanket he was still swinging around, although with less enthusiasm than before. Then she pressed her lips hotly against his.

"Stay away from me," he whispered, but she continued kissing. After a token struggle he let his body go limp and gave in.

"I didn't mean to imply anything," she said. "I could tell you were someone special the moment I set eyes on you. Why do you think I never charged you? What I meant was that you didn't look like the type to be interested in animals."

"Horses aren't just any animals," he said, his tone more appeased. It must have been the wine that made him overreact. "They are magic. Just like those tender moments when I was just a boy. What I had meant to say was that all I wanted when I was little was to ride horseback. Why does everything have to be so complex these days? Nobody can stop with just black against white. They have to take it much further than that, breaking down black into a hundred shades all its own. Hindu and Islam to start. And Arabs, who's to say what goes on with them? They always seem to be bombing us, and when they aren't bombing us they are bombing each other. Everyone talks about the great war of Arabs against Christians, or Jews against Arabs, or Sunnis against Shiites. But when the Arabs are so busy bombing themselves, what's the worry? Sure the World Trade Center went down and terrible things like that are bound to happen every now and then, but will there ever be an Armageddon? I don't think so. Not when Arabs are still bombing Arabs and they can't even decide which end of the camel to mount first."

Francine stepped towards him, her eyes aimed relentlessly at his. At first he felt threatened and turned away, but when he looked back it was as though he had been suddenly transplanted into a dream in which everything was strangely peaceful and good. Even her teeth, sharp and white like flattened ivory knives, radiated an aura of benediction as they rested in the throne of her hot wet mouth.

"Where are you from?" he asked like a stunned man struggling to regain his sense of the world.

"You are _so_ beautiful," she said. "Beautiful," she said again. "When I saw you there in the restaurant I thought you were the most lovely thing I had ever seen. You were a flower amongst weeds. You were a light in the dead of night." She caressed his naked body, running her fingers up and down his chest in slow seductive circles. "I still can't believe you're one of _them_. I spend my whole life selling myself to fat pigs with cash just so I can live a decent existence. Every now and then I meet someone like you that makes it all worth it. A moneyman with a beautiful mind! How rare! If I had things differently I would have taken a degree in architecture. But being with you here tonight more than makes up for it.

Her words were so outrageous and fulsome, he wondered if she wasn't just saying them so he might go away thinking she was a good lay and worth calling up a second time, only for money. "You're lovely as well," he said, although he really wanted to tell her how manipulative she was instead. The words just came out wrong. The lights in the room seemed to dim or redden, he really wasn't sure, and everything took on an oriental appearance. Even the Gustav Klimpt calendar on his refrigerator looked as though it was hanging in a Chinese restaurant, undulating waves of red and blue light as he looked at it from across the room.

"Where are we going?" he asked in a deep curious whisper. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled herself closer until he could no longer feel the borders between them. Their flesh coalesced into a single heap. Her hair was his hair, her skin was his skin.

"Be quiet," she said. She released him and took him by the hand into his bedroom. The light in the room was too low to see anything but the outline of her figure against a black background. He suddenly found himself lost a scenario in which he was in a series of interlocking corridors, unable to find a door that led out in any direction. As her body moved in waves over his all he could think of was how to find the door that would let him out into whatever it was she was keeping from him.

When he woke up the next morning he wasn't sure where he was or how he got there. Sheets were strewn about the floor. He smelled something like cheap tanning oil thickening the air. The sunlight felt like iodine droplets on his eyes. He walked in slow crooked steps to the bathroom. In the morning he always felt slow and old and often wondered how long it would be before this feeling started creeping through the rest of his day. He took a painful look at himself in the mirror. His hair was so wild and sculpted he wondered if someone had gelled and blow-dried it into that shape the night before without him knowing about it. Maybe Quentin had broken in and done this to him just as a prank? On either cheek was written a phone number. One had an "H" in parenthesis after it. It was only then that memories of the previous evening came back. He took a bar of soap and washed the numbers off, keeping his eyes closed so as to make sure they were safe from the soapy water and to make double sure he wasn't trying to unconsciously memorize one of them for later use. Such evenings were always fun and fulfilling, but you could never go back to them. Girls like that were like old high schools once you had slept with them. Good for fond memories, but a definite no-go as far as trying to continue a significant relationship. It wasn't that he was cold or thoughtless. Quite the contrary. He remembered every last one of them and sometimes woke up screaming in the depths of night, convinced that he should call up some woman he had a one night stand with five years earlier and ask her to marry him that very instant. That's why he had to protect himself. That's why it was so dangerous to write down phone numbers. You could easily end up doing something you would later regret and end up with a woman that you had nothing in common with but a searing night of passion riding the waves of a bag of coke or a great bottle of wine.

Gregory walked into his seemingly fathomless closet. His legs were already feeling more supple and alive. He rummaged around in the back and pulled out a yam colored silk Henley and layered it under a midnight wool blazer. It was always important to look your best if you wanted to close a deal. That way you could one day transcend life and never have to work again. He was already close. Just a few more whoppers with people like Henderson and he could quit. Forever. He slipped on his spanking new elephant leather shoes, black like the darkest licorice, and combed his hair backwards and around his ears. Today would be his finest day yet.

He took the elevator down to the main floor and almost bumped into an old woman carrying a bag of vegetables as he raced out onto the sidewalk to hail a cab that had just swerved around the corner.

"To SoHo," he commanded.

"Anywhere in particular or should I just dump you off at the first clean curb I see?" The cab driver was wearing a Panama hat that had a No-Nukes pin hanging off the front rim like a Christmas ornament.

"Sharp," Gregory said as he stepped in. "Corner of west Broadway and Canal will do. I can walk the rest of the way."

The traffic was clear in an almost ghostly way, as one might see in dreams of a post-nuclear world where everyone has just perished in a great scourge. He had seen such a film when he was a student at Harvard Business School. It was in a history of cinema class he took as a final year option and was taught by a thin Polish man who wore a monocle and always used to gargle Listerine in the middle of his lectures. The film portrayed a grim post apocalyptic world completely devoid of wealth, sex, or money. It was a world filled with people called "watchers" from the future, men that whispered while drugging people and wearing strange sunglasses; it was an empty shell of a world without love or purpose, one Gregory hoped never to live in. He knew New York might one day be such a world, but when it happened he would be long dead or too wealthy to care. The traffic thickened as they moved south of Union Square. He felt suddenly more at ease. He could smell traces of Francine's perfume still lingering in his own hair. You could never go back, but it didn't hurt to think about it from time to time.

He slipped the driver a ten and stepped out the door and onto the street. The sky was gray and the air could have been pound cake, the humidity was so dense. He stepped into the nearest Starbucks and bought his usual Americano and rushed back out onto the sidewalk. His Chastworth office was located on the top floor of the Sloane building just five blocks away in the direction of the World Trade Center. When he was alone at home he longed for its soft leather chairs and the way they smelled – like the inside of a Rolls Royce, only richer and more complex. He dreamed of its soaring ceiling and wide trembling windows that opened up to the majesty of the Manhattan skyline. There was a meeting at ten and he was probably already late. After that he had a luncheon date with a potential client from a bank in LA. In the afternoon he would be free to go over his own files and work towards some final strategy with his burgeoning new telecommunications accounts.

### Chapter 1.6

Laura tightened her grip on her shoulder bag as she broke into a light jog to catch the walk light at the next intersection. She had forgotten what time it was. Not only that, she had forgotten to call Mace for lunch and was starting to feel guilty about it. If you forgot to call your lover when you were supposed to, and it was just a mental lapse with no underlying bad intentions, did it still mean your relationship was failing and make you any less of a person? She didn't really know. Her life was filled with so many uncertainties she didn't know who or what to believe anymore. If Laura Chain was certain of only one thing, it was that she was uncertain of everything except that she was _the first woman of the twenty first century_. Johnny Enzyme had said so himself. But what exactly this meant she had always been uncertain. Yet, maybe that was just it. Perhaps the twenty first century was going to be a century of great uncertainties and by lacking certainty in just the right way she had somehow qualified as its first _true_ woman. But even of this she was uncertain.

She was born December 21st, nineteen eighty-three, too old to be a baby boomer or even a Gen Xer. But she always knew she was different, she always knew she was star crossed. And Johnny Enzyme only confirmed this. Her life would be one of those rare exalted existences like that of St. Francis or Charlemagne. But how would it be different? That was the one question that had always plagued her, the one problem that seemed to have no solution. Her apartment was filled with relics from her youth, a vast and once so modern era: a hooka pipe carved from an elk antler, a conical lava lamp filled with glowing red oil, an op art spiral she bought from the souvenir shop at the Guggenheim. Her television was almost always on, often at the same time as the radio. Sometimes she waxed her hair into twisted braids and ribbons, whose shape belonged more to a designer pasta menu than even the most daring hairstyle magazines. On weekends she wore olive drab fatigues, echoing nineteen seventies West Berlin, sometimes with a muslin hemp shirt imported from Afghanistan. Her five pairs of sunglasses were all Anna Hickman - a new Brazilian model and designer - and magazine cutouts of women in black leather with army helmets and whips were pasted inside her closet doors. Being secretive and discrete while also being open and liberal: that was the winning formula of the modern world. Contradiction. Hiding behind emotional shields and never disclosing your truest intentions, while still upholding the liberal values of post nineteen sixties Europe and USA. Ever since Johnny Enzyme had baptized her the poster child of this new and perilous age, she had hidden this message inside her and secretly built her life around it. She would never forget him first reciting this prophecy as though reading from an ancient scroll through his thin magnetic lips – parched and cracking from the cold dry winds rolling in from the Yukon and beyond – that fateful snowy night as he tore off his shirt piece by ragged piece and tossed it into a heap in the middle of the room, encircled as though with Christmas gifts by empty liquor bottles and used syringes. That night was her defining moment, her Golgatha, her silent sermon on the mount.

When she got home she sent Mace a quick text promising to call later and picked up a copy of the Village Voice, flipping through it with a mixture of admiration and disdain. She knew all too well the Janus face of mass media. Without it everyone was left blindfolded and ignorant, but with it they were living a lie. Media was her job, her livelihood. In her small third-story office at Canters Advertising she was an invisible force on the internet and airwaves. Artists always got to sign their paintings, but advertisers never got credit for anything. But maybe it was all for the better as it made everything in her public life that much more clandestine and anonymous. She could make fun of politicians without making herself a target. She was an invisible breath of subversion. It was best to keep her views secret, especially in this twisted world where even war and genocides were just Gala openings or press events. Public image was everything. Everyone knew Coca Cola was the official sponsor of the Gulf War, but who was the official sponsor of the Kurdish genocide? That was a question she longed to find out. New rock genres were fostered around public responses to unpopular military campaigns and military campaigns were fostered in response to rebel rock movements. It was impossible to separate politics from advertising or pop culture. While nineteenth century Europe decorated its palaces with relics from the east, and the twentieth century West created new artistic or political isms only to smash them down five years later, the twenty first century would be something completely different: it would be defined by an almost spiritual supplication to mass media. Hadn't it even been said in Cronenberg's _Videodrome_ that television was the retina of the mind's eye? To be in touch with the world you had to have a radio in your living room. You had to have a TV in your bedroom. And internet apps crawling into every orifice of your body - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram: these were just the beginning. You had to be able to be intimate with actors, musicians, and sports stars you had never met and speak as intelligently of their personal lives as would their closest friends and family. Even Generation X was just created by the advertisers to give a definition to an amorphous and shadowy population spike that needed to have an image tagged to it so advertisers could better aim their marketing strategy. And it was out of this background that Laura entered, or rather blossomed, into the twenty first century. What was Generation X grown older? Generation Z? Marketing wasn't enslavement by money or the corporate world; if anything the opposite was true. By working in advertising she could use her own creative vision to subvert the gray diplomacy of corporate America. Proof? _The Clash_ – one of Johnny Enzyme's favorite bands - had made it into mainstream TV ads. It was the ultimate subversion. The same people that scoffed at them twenty years ago were now celebrating them. The world of advertising was a creative Trojan horse that could be used to subvert the mainstream in the places it was most vulnerable.

Laura pulled out the classified section. In the center of the twentieth page was an ad she had just placed for a lawn and garden supply house in south Brooklyn. It showed a picture of a cartoon lawnmower complete with a face and arms, thick and bulging like those of a sailor, smiling as it cut into a row of weeds. She tossed the paper onto the floor and watched it form a crumpled tent-like structure in the light breeze from outside before rolling into a corner and going flat. The ad took about four hours of meetings with her boss and a guy named Marv, who ran the garden center, to decide whether the figure would be cutting into a flower garden or a row of weeds. Laura thought a flower garden was better, because they sometimes had patches of grass that needed trimming and would catch more people's eyes than a row of weeds. But Marv thought mowing down a flower garden sent out the wrong message, and Laura's boss was determined to kowtow to his client's personal sensibilities, whether or not the ad was successful. It was better, he thought, to get his business and risk an unsuccessful ad, than to hurt his feelings and loose his business altogether. Especially since most clients usually gave an ad agency a second shot if their first ad turned out to be ineffective.

But what was she doing worrying about lawn maintenance anyway? That was the real question. How had her life even come to this? She had almost everything she wanted, everything a woman in her position could hope for, everything except, perhaps, love. Love and death. The two words rung in her mind like two chimes struck at the same instant, their sounds blending together until they became one. They were the biggest clichés in the modern world, but like many clichés always seemed to reinvent themselves and justify their place in the world anew. More than just a few trendy European scholars insisted that love and death were one and the same. Love was a longing that could never be slaked - not even when you were in love - for as long as you were alive, and could only be truly satisfied the moment you died. It was only then that love's longing and love itself became one.

Laura picked up the remote and turned on the television. A man wearing a beige cardigan was sitting at a large wooden desk, his hands crossed in thought; behind him loomed a wall of red and brown leather-bound books with gold lettering on the spines too small for her to read. He made a few perfunctory comments about cultural relativism and the importance of race issues in psychological counseling while waving his hands about in strange ways that might have looked like sign language if the volume wasn't on to prove otherwise. Laura had encountered such men in her early teens. Like the winter she was put on anti-depressants as a punishment for running away from home because of an argument with her mother's Sioux philosopher boyfriend. She was caught by the police two days later behind a Wendy's and taken home immediately. A social worker reviewed the case and she was ordered to visit some psychiatrist named John Skeels every two weeks for the next four months to discuss her "problems". He had disconcertingly sincere eyes, like that of a minister on a Sunday morning prayer program. He always said "I understand" while nodding his head mechanically, even when she tried to explain that she was perfectly happy except for her mother's boyfriend. He would always start every meeting with the question "what does it feel like to be Laura?" and finished by taking notes on a small pad that she was never allowed to see. After six prescriptions for various combinations of anti-depressants that had no effect but to make her feel either too nervous or too drowsy, Skeels finally concluded she wasn't really depressed, but rather she had serious problems coming to terms with the "multicultural nature of her neighborhood" and for this reason needed further counseling. His assessment was based on a questionnaire she had answered where she said she would rather stay home alone than attend a high school dance catered by a Lebanese restaurant. Skeels, she was sure even then, was a complete idiot. She wasn't depressed in the first place and her two best friends, Star and Tünde, were not even American. Star was an Inuit from northern Saskatchewan who sold bad blond hash and rode around town parks on a bright yellow Ski-Doo whenever there was a snowstorm, and Tünde was a German exchange student who didn't have any other friends in Portland, most likely because she was tall and had enormous breasts, something that seemed to intimidate the males in school while making all the teenage girls jealous.

What made Laura particularly angry about Skeels' prognosis was that she had always been skeptical of the concept of race and all its proponents. People weren't parts of separate races any more than black cats were different from calico cats. And those who went to great ends to fight for the cause of one oppressed race over any other were usually racists themselves. Laura took people as they were, for what they showed in their eyes and how they smiled or cried. What they had to say. Race, as far as she was concerned, was just another social control mechanism invented by the ruling class to oppress the masses. Worse, it was used to give people like John Skeels jobs that allowed them to pigeonhole decent people like Tünde and Star as "minorities" while they dragged out their whole boatload of touchy-feely bullshit to fill up hours of counseling, for which they probably got paid more than any of their clients, who mostly came from poor underprivileged backgrounds.

Laura turned the volume down and walked over to her computer. She moved the mouse back and forth in short arcs until the screen lit up. The randomly flowing geometric screen saver filled the room with an unearthly purple light. She logged into her e-mail account and checked to see if she had any new messages. There were a few of the usual spam offerings and phone sex teasers she never opened, always deleting them as soon as she read the headings. Was there really phone sex for women? The idea seemed silly and even awkward. What kind of self-respecting men would do such a thing? Men weren't allowed to be the temptress or the object of desire. Men were only sexy when they did things. Real things. Only once in a gay paraphernalia shop in the East Village had she even seen pictures of men posing in the nude. They had full rapturous smiles like Botticelli nudes and were wrapped in miles of satin sheets sprawled across some Rococo canopy bed, hard-ons jutting out like the Washington monument. It was ridiculous, even risible. Phone sex for women seeking men was almost a non sequitur: a sterile voice on the other end of the line that made you think not of long hot nights with some dazzling Musketeer of the underworld, but rather of all those fatuous postcards she had seen in that East Village shop that afternoon.

She pulled out the card that Halo had given her and set it down in front of her. The e-mail address read _royaljet@rcf.co.uk_. She liked the sound of it. It was sleek and modern, like a Japanese silk tie: understated, yet powerful. Was it his personal e-mail address or was it a joint account that other members of the secret service had access to? She clicked on "compose" and opened up a fresh message page, typing his address in its proper place. What would she put down for the subject? She didn't want to be too suggestive, as she really had nothing but a vague curiosity about Halo and the thought of working for him still seemed far-fetched. Yet she had to admit something inside her wanted more. The image of his face had been hovering in the back of her mind since their last meeting, casting a certain sense of enchantment over everything she did and thought. After some deliberation, she decided to leave the subject ambiguous and just type in "Last Week", not wanting to draw any attention to any particular aspect of what she was about to say at the expense of anything else she might say that might turn out to be more relevant.

Dear Mr. Halo,

First of all I would like to apologize for your early exit last night. I did not intend to offend you in any way and would certainly like to see you again, if just for a more cordial goodbye before you return to England.

She stopped and reread what she had just written. It was direct, clear, and polite and did not betray her true feelings on the matter. What should she say next? She picked up her pen and started to chew on it. Byzantium. The word appeared in her mind's eye once more, yet this time with more solidarity and purpose. When she closed her eyes she was floating in an ocean of copper colored domes and spiking minarets glistening beneath an azure sky. There was something about Halo that reminded her of antiquity; perhaps it was his gentle, yet studied manner, or maybe it was his deep penetrating eyes, almost rapt in their intensity.

I'm really not sure what to say to you. I don't know why you singled me out for help in your investigation, and it is not every day that a woman gets an opportunity to play "Mata Hari". This is not to say that I am interested in taking up your offer, but rather that your presence seems to have brought about a change inside me that I cannot stop.

She stopped again. Her forehead was sweating. She thought she heard someone walking back and forth upstairs, but when she stopped to listen she wasn't sure. Why had she written what she just had? Why did Halo, a complete stranger, have any right to know what was going on inside her? She had always been a reticent woman, in spite of her rebellious nature and many relationships, a person who kept more inside than she was ever willing to show. It was as though Halo had pressed a button, setting into motion an invisible crane that had pulled up some invisible crate from inside her that once was opened could never be closed. Was she physically attracted to him? The answer was a clear no. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't imagine being physically involved with him in any way. Yet from within his presence she felt the emergence of a kind of promise of something more than what she was, something that she had always needed, yet had never really known existed until she felt it there before her.

But I have already said enough. Perhaps this is all nonsense, or maybe it isn't. I would like to see you before you go. Will you be at Selbey's again?

She reread the message. It was too candid and personal and therefore utterly inappropriate. But perhaps that was all the more reason to send it. People always went through life like zombies shielding themselves from any real feeling or expression. And wasn't it her duty as _the first woman of the twenty first century_ to lash out and go against this crippling grain? She moved her finger towards the mouse and then froze in mid-motion when a frightening thought occurred to her. What if he was just some kind of pervert trying to move in on her and take advantage of her? She read a news story once about a woman who had a man send her flowers and take her out to the best restaurants in Los Angeles for weeks before she found out he was a convicted rapist. She had invited him back to her ground-level apartment for the second time (the first was apparently spent discussing Bach and Brahms on her couch) and out of the blue he pulled a knife on her and demanded she strip naked in front of him. As luck would have it a neighbor knocked on the door that very instant and the man slipped the knife in his pocket and escaped through the window. She never saw him again and by the time the police followed up on their leads he had completely vanished. She never knew if the story was true or not, but the mere fact that it _could_ be true was enough.

She took a deep breath and raised the cursor to the delete box. There was no way she could send such a message. But just as she was about to hit delete, she suddenly moved the cursor to "send" and double clicked. She waited numbly until the dialogue box appeared on the screen to signal the message was gone. Then, as she went to log off, she realized she had forgotten to sign it. Although it was clear who it was from, failing to put her name to it made her look weak and possibly vulnerable, something she really wasn't. It might also send out the message that she was easy prey, someone readily shaken and even more readily manipulated. With these thoughts on her mind she went into the kitchen and fixed herself a cup of tea.

When she got back the message flag was already blinking. She looked in her mailbox. It was from Halo. It was almost as if he had been standing beside his computer all along waiting for her to contact him. Her mind filled with images of satellites and frozen telephone lines. How was it possible for e-mail to travel so quickly through all that fog and rain to England and somehow make it back to her in New York in the time it took her to make a cup of tea? She clicked on the message window and opened it. She breathed a sigh of relief when she noticed he had deleted what she had written, sparing her the embarrassment of having to reread it. It seemed like a considerate gesture, but what was the true underlying intention? Only her best friends would have done that. In the business world everyone always sent back what you had written along with their reply. Sometimes this went on for several cycles until the message was almost too long to track backwards.

Dear Laura,

I have had to return to Britain at the last minute. I will be back in New York in two weeks. I will contact you then.

Yours,

JH

She had a feeling like a déjà vu, only subtly different, as though a part of her that had long been dormant was suddenly stirring. Open the door, she thought. Open it. She imagined she was reaching around Tünde's waist, but somehow the closer and more intimate her embrace, the more alone she felt, as though the warmth and extension of her body stood as a constant reminder of a barrier that could never be surmounted and how she would always be alone in the world. The rain was already soaking through her shoes to her feet, making them almost unbearably cold. She let her head sink and watched Tünde's high heels trembling in the small puddle that had gathered around her feet. Laura looked up from the computer screen and let her hand slide down her stomach to the inside of her thigh. Oh Tünde, she wrote in pencil on a small notepad as though to remind herself of something later in the week, where am I? She pulled back the curtains and looked outside. It was dark, darker than she had ever remembered it.

## BOOK 2

### Chapter 2.1

Halo picked up a deck of cards and shuffled it twice, contemplating the blurred white arc of the two half-decks as they collapsed into one. The sound was strangely satisfying, like the distant buzz of cicadas on a sunny afternoon. He set the cards down and turned his attention to the man sitting across from him at the table. The room was dark except for the bright florescent light from the lamp overhead.

"The one thing that brings the world together is the Internet," the inspector stated in the lofty tone of a man on the brink of a profound philosophical insight. "It is the cornerstone of twenty first century culture. In the past there were marketplaces, cafés, teahouses, and even opium dens to help the flow of ideas. But with the Internet face-to-face contact is no longer necessary. It unites everything. It is the center of man's universe. But like all too many great things it also has its evil twin - in this case the Dark Web."

Halo studied the finest details of the inspector's bodily motions as he listened to his commentary, paying particular attention to the way his jaws made a dull clicking noise as his cheeks moved up and down. Since the inspector had taken over the department five years ago the grating intensity of this sound had seemed to grow in perfect tandem with his run of increasing success. It was only the month before that he had been awarded a Royal Badge of Honor for his work in breaking up a South London drug ring. Halo had never resented the inspector's rise to the top, taking it as the expression of a kind of transcendent biological directive in which the superior creature always ascends to greater power than its weaker rivals, which in this case would have included Halo had he ever entertained any aspirations of becoming the chief inspector. After all, they were both in service of the Crown, fighting the same enemies and protecting the same UK citizens. So, it was ultimately better to have such a man on his side rather than pitted against him in some meaningless power struggle.

"You just never know what is lurking out there," the inspector continued. He pinched some tobacco out of the hollow of his palm and started rolling a cigarette. "In the twentieth century criminals hid out in physical locations – alleyways, shacks, abandoned bunkers – but now they hide out on the Dark Web. Fighting a war against crime has become like fighting a war against an invisible enemy hiding in some country like Indonesia without a real geographical center or unifying culture." The inspector's eyes suddenly lit up with the anticipation of a man playing a roulette wheel.

"An interesting proposition," Halo replied. "How would you make sure you combed across every last island or that everyone you targeted was really an enemy and not some potential ally?"

"That's just the point. You can't. You can only lay traps and hope somebody falls into one of them. That's what the CIA had to do against that group of Russian hackers running a credit card fraud ring. It was only last year. They were selling credit card numbers by the dozens – and only for about ten dollars each – to whoever would dare use them. The devils! The CIA knew what they were up to, but couldn't do a thing to stop them. So, what did they do?"

Halo shrugged his shoulders. He had heard much about it, but didn't want to upstage the inspector by parading his knowledge of past cases. It was better to feign ignorance. The inspector looked over his shoulder as though an invisible listener was hiding somewhere in the room. Then he looked back at Halo and started to whisper. "The CIA set up a false company in Baltimore and posted an ad recruiting people with hacking experience to help them with national security. Several of the Russians were stupid enough to fall for it and apply – really quite surprising given how bright they must have been to have gotten away with their scam for so long - and were hired by the dummy company on the spot. Then the CIA just set up a keystroke tracking program - 'Investigator' I think it was called - and were then able to secretly monitor every action of the unwitting Russian employees on their computers. One of the hackers was so careless that he kept regular communications with the other members of the ring and even used a password that gained access into the hard drive in Moscow with all the credit card numbers stored on it." The room rumbled with the sound of an underground train passing beneath them. "And so they were caught red handed."

"Perhaps it was just hubris," Halo mused. "There is nothing more exhilarating for the criminal than to see how far he can go without being caught. The ego rush afforded by tricking the authorities is even better than the money they make." He stared into the inspector's dull brown eyes. "The one thing that always has amazed me over all my years in this trade is the total ineptitude of what are supposed to be some of the most powerful institutions in society. Law. Medicine. Education. I'd take a child or a mute any day over anyone holding a diploma from a university. Anyone formally trained in a subject by definition lacks the insight required to make an original contribution to it. In this sense public schooling of any kind has only served to weigh society down and prevent it from reaching its highest aspirations. The Mafia, and not just those clowns on television with spaghetti bolognaise and violins, have always impressed me. They move like shadows, leaving nothing behind but the scent of that shadow in their wake. And how many police dogs do you know that can track the scent of a shadow?"

The inspector smiled with the satisfaction of a man farting on a mountaintop. "Yes," he said. "But now the CIA is facing charges for illegally tracking the Russian hackers. What does a man need to do to make a decent arrest these days?"

"You have to use your imagination."

"But imagination isn't enough. In the act of starting an investigation you give up your position and make it easy for the enemy to regroup and prepare a counterattack. My uncle served as a tank commander for the allied forces in Normandy. He was positioned on a front about a hundred yards from a line of Hunting Tiger tanks. Scary beasts, those. The thickest armor and heaviest guns ever put on a pair of tracks. The best time to attack was night, but that meant turning on your engine and betraying your location. And there was always enough time for the other tanks to turn on their engines and change position before the first tank could even warm up its guns. So, after all the tanks had switched locations they would turn off their engines without a single shot exchanged, and wait for the next round of musical chairs."

The inspector took out a shot glass and swiveled his chair towards the wall as though Halo was nothing more than a shadow in the room. He filled the glass with some whiskey from a small bottle in his breast pocket and then turned back to Halo.

"I propose a toast," he said. "A toast to prosperity and well-being. A toast to all things strong and free. In short, a toast to the end of the world." He laughed ironically.

Halo arched his eyebrow without changing his facial expression. "The end of the world? Why should anyone toast for that? I should think that not even the worst terrorist would want that. There wouldn't be anything to terrorize anymore. It would be like praying to get laid off for good."

The inspector downed the whiskey in a single gulp and set the glass firmly on the table. "Speaking of terrorists, there is a very important new development I want you to look into. It seems that we have uncovered some information regarding a Russian-led plot to undermine EU expansion into the East by carrying out a string of bombings in downtown Warsaw. It seems there is a small faction of hard liners who oppose Eastern involvement in NATO and the expansion of Western influence into what used to belong to Moscow."

"Such views have been commonplace for quite a while now," said Halo dismissively. "You only have to down a pint in the local pub to find people who don't want anything to do with Belgian imperialism and the Franco-German empire. Where else but our beloved EU would you find carrots being called a fruit or wood-fire pizza ovens banned?"

"Point well-taken." The inspector picked up his hat and brushed the top lightly with his hand. "But nevertheless, it is crucial to world stabilization that the wealthier North consolidate itself against the poorer but more barbaric South. We need the East to join us. The unified North! Don't you see? With OPEC oil embargoes and all out war in The Middle East and North Africa only a matter of time, a unified northern hemisphere spanning through Russia, Europe, and America is an absolute necessity. Forget petty nationalism and populist politicians - that is just going backwards."

Halo went silent. The air in Brixton always felt heavy to him. It had a thick dense texture and an odor so distinctive he would know in an instant where he was even if he had been abducted and transported there in a blindfold. Brixton had an effect on people. It made them secretive and silent. It made them suspicious.

"I understand," Halo finally said without fully agreeing. "We have to do whatever is best to protect England and her Majesty. It is imperative that we stop whatever bomb plots there are in the works."

"You know, the first time I saw a bomb in the flesh I was really quite in awe. It was in India. An officer brought in a small device that he said was designed for the destruction of buildings about the size of a house. It was so small I could hold it in my fist. So much power in such little space. A portable black hole. A warp in space-time. Something that just defies all rules of logic and abides solely to the laws of chaos."

"Such depravity." Halo shook his head in regret. "To imagine someone would want to subject the innocent to such..."

"Chaos," the inspector interjected. He pulled a leaflet out of his pocket and set it on the table. "No More Heroes" it read. There was a red star in the center and a gray cloud surrounding it on all sides as though the star were rising in the morning mist like some kind of new sun.

"But the irony is that bombs always serve the purposes of the few and ignorant," Halo interjected. He repositioned himself in his chair. "Terrorists think they are in control of chaos, yet they are just pawns of a much greater game, being used and discarded as the billionaires and governing powers choose. Terrorists use religion and fear in the same way the state uses it to tighten their grip on the masses. No one ever wins. The state profits and the poor suffer. The extremist pawn dies in his senseless blasts and the cabinet minister goes on charging everything to his taxpayer-backed expense account. And garbage like this," he said with more emphasis as he pointed to the pamphlet. "Communist rubbish. _No more heroes anywhere_. What about working class heroes? Men on holidays collecting their union sanctioned holiday pay. You know, I never did like those long drab holiday weekends in America. I was stationed there for a year. Thanksgiving was always a classic for that. The biggest holiday of the year. Bigger than Christmas. When the Americans say they put the state ahead of the church they really mean it. For twenty four hours there isn't anything to do in the whole confounded country but sit down and eat."

"One should be careful not to trivialize radical Communism," the inspector said. "Communism has any number of ways of coming back to haunt us. The children of destruction are always born to destroy."

"You misunderstand me. Do you know why there are no more heroes? It's really quite simple. There are no more heroes because those that might have been heroes in another world die as complete unknowns, having just been used as pawns for some dubious cause, while those declared heroes by society are only manufactured by the ruling class for some political or financial reason. We worship victims. On every newspaper front page is a victim, not a hero. An old woman gets mugged. A country experiences famine. A house is burned down leaving a family penniless. Yet ironically, there are still _local_ heroes. Men and women who do small things for their community. People who mow lawns for the elderly. People who take care of the sick. People who give milk to homeless kittens. If I were to create a regime of my own," he turned his knuckle in his nose and sneezed, "I would build a world of servants to protect and nurture those who need to be safeguarded from danger."

"Not me," the inspector disagreed. "I would make a world where all men could do all things and everyone would get equal support. If you wanted to kill, you could kill. If you wanted to bless, you could bless. Religion and murder, truth and falsity..."

"In other words you would turn us all into clerics!"

"Clerics? I'm not sure you understand what I just said."

"Or perhaps I understand too much."

"But maybe too much is really too little. Modern physics, you know."

Halo raised his eyes in such a way that his face took on a resemblance to a statue more than a live person. He pulled a small cigar out of his shirt pocket and lifted it to his nose, drawing it from right-to-left as a smile spread across his face. He held it up to the inspector like a weighty piece of courtroom evidence.

"This cigar was cured for five years after being dipped in three different types of cognac, all classic vintages. It represents the very apogee of man's capacity to create a delicate and moving experience. There's always something new to discover about a cigar of this quality." He produced a silver lighter from his pocket and inserted the cigar carefully between his lips. After a few draws his face disappeared behind a thick veil of smoke. "Life," he said, "is constantly leaving us behind. It is in a state of always moving away from us. When we think we understand it, the only thing we can really conclude is that it has already left us in its slipstream."

"And when it comes back..."

"It never comes back." Halo set the cigar down on the table and watched it burn a small circle in the varnished wood surface beneath its glowing tip. "Life never comes back to us, no matter how much we pray for it to do so."

The inspector turned away to signal an end to the conversation. His hand twitched slightly and then he stared at a point in space about a foot in front of his forehead before laughing a strange hysterical laugh as though he was watching a procession of dwarves dancing in a circus ring. "We must get on with things. We received a tip about an address in Stockwell that may be a meeting place for some of the members of the Russian group."

"Certainly," said Halo.

"By the way, what is happening with that woman?"

"She is already showing signs of interest. I get the feeling she'll eventually come around. She seems strong willed, but still quite loosely knit. I think she is bored with her life, desperate to move on to something new and different that might give her whatever it is she thinks she needs."

"What does she smell like?" The inspector started petting the inside of his wrist as he seemed to recall some distant memory.

"What does any woman smell like? Flowers? Satin?"

"No. Dirt. That's what I say. They smell like the same old dirt they were born in."

"All the better."

"Better for who? It would take some pathetic example of humanity to want to stick his member into a pile of mud."

"I never implied such a thing." Halo had another puff of the cigar and then took out a small black box. "I almost forgot. I have something for you."

"That's why I came."

"Our men in Nice delivered it yesterday."

The inspector took the box from Halo's hands and examined it by rotating it slowly in his palm. "It is heavy," he said.

"As it should be."

"Indeed."

The room rumbled once more to the sound of a passing subway train. Halo focused his gaze on the glowing tip of the cigar, watching the continuously festooning coils rise through the air and bloom into a giant flower of haze as they flowed upwards to the ceiling and vanished. In two days he would be back in America and everything would once again be back in place.

### Chapter 2.2

Laura fumbled with her keys before finally tossing them down on the bar in frustration. Something was upsetting her and she didn't know exactly what. Or rather, she knew _what_ it was but didn't know _why_ it was. Mace was acting strangely. Only an hour ago he had sent her a text consisting of five kissing lip icons and nothing more, which would have been nothing to worry about had they not been smaller and more oblique than normal, conspicuously so. Had their relationship irrevocably changed? Since she had started seeing him they never once had an argument, or more accurately, arguing was such a constant way of being for them that it could never be considered arguing at all. An argument implied a disagreement met with violent opposition. It lifted one particular event out of the normal run of things and made it stand out in a disruptive way. But the night before, on the eve of her anticipated third meeting with Halo, she had a different kind of argument with Mace. It wasn't a cathartic upheaval with broken picture frames, black eyes and damaged souls - that would have been too easy. Too much like Jerry Springer. Too much like everyone else. Mace's tone was always one of aggression and pain. Even when he was happy there was an air of derision in his voice. It was something that happened during all those years in jail in California. But that was what she expected of him. She knew he was gentle and weak underneath it all and the angrier he was, the more she wanted to comfort him. Thousands would have dumped Mace ages ago, but not Laura. She craved the taste of his sweet darkness. She drank it. She shot it between the folds of her eyelids like some new kind of Botox. She sucked it up inside her when they made love, her thighs gouged and craving for more.

But the night of their argument, Mace had a calm look in his eyes, the understanding gaze of a soldier on a peacekeeping mission. His face was overflowing with sympathy. He walked into her apartment carrying a copy of The Bhagavad-Gita – quite disturbing for a person who only a week before claimed religion was _part of a conspiracy by the government to keep people emotionally neutered and suppress the great inner potential that lurked in the primal dens of our hearts_ – and handed it to her. The Bhagavad-Gita. She had studied it in university and had even once slept with a biker who had just got back from visiting Jim Morison's grave in Paris and had its first verse tattooed on the tip of his penis in Sanskrit.

Mace held the book up as though it were made out of frosted glass and was struggling to see through it.

"Have you ever wondered what it would be like to escape to the Antarctic? Just get a team of huskies and a few parkas and you're in business."

"What does that have to do with The Bhagavad-Gita?"

"What it would be like with all that white everywhere? Heaven on earth? I'm not so sure. I bet with all that ice even the moonlight would make you go blind. Snow blindness to the extreme. Like pavement blindness in LA. That's why they always wear sunglasses down there." Mace hated his years in LA. The entire city was no less of a prison than the California State prison downtown. LA was so big it lost its sense of immediacy and became no more than a heap of small nothings tossed together into one grandiose primetime nothing. But for this very reason it represented America at its very best.

"Maybe you'd go blind in heaven, too," Laura quipped.

Mace took the book back out of her hands. "Have you ever read it?"

"Of course...but a long time ago," she said.

"Did it make you cry?"

"No," she said.

"It should have. I read it this morning. I thought of your smile and how it was related to the whole web of spiritual complexities spreading through the world."

She had never heard him talk in such a somber tone. It was as though he suddenly regretted everything in the universe and came to the conclusion that there was no solution to human existence, not even death.

"And you cried?"

"It was yesterday morning. I was walking down the street behind a man spiffed out in a flashy suit and carrying a briefcase. Must have been five thousand dollars right there. What did he do? He turned around as though he had been watching me all day and then he started chasing after me and pointing his fingers at me shouting something about how I stole his wallet. I ran until I got away, but when I caught my breath I was suddenly overwhelmed by all the hatred in the world and how many people walk around with gold chains dangling from their dicks just spreading more anger when they could be making peace. So then I told my friend Ray what happened. For the last few weeks he had been going on about the Kali Yuga – some Hindu age of eternal darkness that was supposed to be spreading through the world this century. I didn't give a shit at the time but then I thought he could shed some light on my experience. The Kali Yuga slapping me in the face in the form of some dickhead with a briefcase. So, he patted me on the back and gave me a copy of The Bhagavad-Gita. He said it would change everything."

"And did it help?" she asked with propped up understanding. Ray was one of Mace's oldest friends. All Laura knew about his past was that he had met Mace in Vegas years back, long before Mace went to prison for whatever it was that sent him there. He dressed like some kind of Roy Rogers tempered by a decade of Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack. It was a strange image for someone who worked in a metaphysical bookstore, but somehow he made it work.

"I don't want to make love to you for a whole week," he said. "I don't think I can. It's just not going to work. Sex is a form of aggression. Rape. It's all part of the darkness." He trembled as he shook his head. Then he picked up the book up and walked out of the room. An hour later she found a folded piece of paper slipped under her front door. He had signed it but there was no message, only a drawing of what looked like a sad young woman carrying a notebook.

And that was the argument. That was what was troubling her as she sat there waiting at Selby's for Halo to show up. She had tried a B-52, a Manhattan, and a dry sherry. Now she was working on her first beer, a tall cold glass of Krönenberg. What was so troubling about the argument wasn't his sudden revulsion with sex, but the first glimmer of a person lurking beneath his skin that she didn't know, someone she had never seen or met that might just as well have been a stranger in a dark black cab or a man standing alone in a confession booth in some church she had never been in. That was why it was an argument. That was why anything was ever an argument. It wasn't the violence or broken glass, it was the confirmation of the presence of someone else, a third party, standing between you and the person you were once so sure you knew.

An African man wearing a garish orange robe decorated with shining metal discs the size of silver dollar pancakes strolled by her table. He turned around and smiled. He was carrying a large unfinished gemstone of some kind and tilted his head away when she looked up at him. Just then a gang of three young Jay Z wannabes stopped outside and pounded on the window as though it was their house and someone had just locked them out. A waiter ran outside and shouted something as he shook his fist in earnest at them, but the gang dissipated with an ominous lack of urgency as though the waiter had represented only a minor curiosity, like a small dog that might have just crossed their path.

Laura finished her beer and adjusted her hair using the mirror behind the bar. Halo was late again. Although she was already drunk and time was starting to move more quickly, she couldn't help checking her watch every minute or two, wondering when she should draw the line and walk out. Drinking alone in bars was treacherous at the best of times and had its obvious pitfalls. She could meet someone she didn't want to talk to at all. Or she could meet someone she wanted to talk to too much, a man that would redefine her idea of love or excitement, which was worse. Yes, a man she actually enjoyed talking to would definitely be worse. But wasn't Halo such a man? Didn't she feel something quiver inside her, a warm feeling on the tips of her breasts accompanied by a subtle tingling in her toes as though her body was spontaneously transforming into a kind of heated vaporous form? No. Not quite. She was drawn to him only as she would to a threshold. He would change things in her life such that she would never be the same. But if this prophecy was true, then why did she even want to meet him at all? She was perfectly happy before she met him, so why did she have to complicate things by making it harder on herself? Yes, she thought as she looked at herself in the mirror, the people in bars you wanted to see were always worse for you than those you didn't want to see.

Just as she was gathering her coat she saw Halo appear out of the corner of her eye. She pretended not to notice as she watched him move slowly across the room, his feet almost seeming to hover an inch above the floor as if his body was buoyed by the air around him. He had a black raincoat folded over his arm and was wearing large sunglasses like an elderly blind man in an Ingmar Bergman film. He held a gold colored pen in his hand, and a notebook sticking ever so slightly out of the pocket of his blazer.

"How was England?" she asked as he approached her, trying to disguise her drunkenness. She adjusted her pose to something more formal as he sat down.

"It's so good to see you again." He smiled with reserved affection, like an uncle to his niece. He took off his sunglasses and set them on the table. "England? It was wonderful. There is always something special about coming back to America, though. England sticks to you like an unwelcome moss, soft and cold. The buildings are all made from worn out brick and stucco and people seem to walk around in a slow daze like fish in an aquarium. America is faster and cleaner. I feel as though the whole world has suddenly accelerated."

"I've never been to Europe," she said. Then she wondered if she might have made a mistake by lumping England together with the rest of Europe. In her heart she had always felt she was European. It wasn't really in her blood, although her great grandfather was from Austria. Her Europe was different. It didn't come to her from family ties talking about raising her in the way of the old world or Portland Espresso bars with Ferrari posters plastered all over the wall. Her Europe came from her soul, a dormant seed planted unconsciously by the books and films she had read and seen as she was growing up. It was a seed that might one day sprout forth and flower. Even though she had never been there, Europe was no less Laura's world than the Pacific Rim culture she was raised in.

"You look as though you have. Wait..." He turned around and ordered two whiskeys with little more than a whisper and a gesture of his hand. Laura wanted to say she had had enough, but the thought had already stumbled and died before it had a chance to surface.

"I want to go some day."

"I have a feeling you will soon."

"Why?"

"It's in your eyes. A certain wetness. A glassy look of excitement and curiosity. You look like a woman that something important is about to happen to."

She rolled her eyes and smiled. "But will it be good or bad?"

"It depends what you make of it. You see, the man we are investigating, his name is Gregory – I'll save his last name for later. A full name is like a social insurance number. It's only a means of tracing a person, but doesn't say anything about who they are and what's in their soul."

"Parents give a child a name when it is born and they first look into its eyes. It's spontaneous. But a last name is a form of fatalism."

"Then what is your fate? A chain?"

"How about a halo?" She smiled brightly.

He laughed behind the charade of his rigid lips. "Games are always an amusement. They make life more interesting. They add hooks to what would otherwise be overly smooth and bland." He put up his index finger as though he was about to make a final point, but then he stopped in mid-motion and let his hand drop. "But back to Gregory. He'll be at a certain art opening next week. I'm wondering if you have had time to give my offer much thought. Wait. I can see from your eyes, you are thinking. Of course there'll be money, but that is immaterial."

"Money? No. I was thinking of why you just made an offhand remark about this Gregory person's soul only to suddenly drop it and talk about business. That, and what I had to do tomorrow at work. Nothing else."

"I was never much of a mind reader." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card with an address on it. "But if you would like to meet Gregory he will be at The Gagosian. One thing I must warn you, though. He is wanted by our country. And I'm sure by yours as well. He is a bona fide shark on the stock exchange, a true confidence man suspected of multiple counts of fraud and money laundering involving sums of money large enough to support the economy of a small island nation. If we can round up the proper evidence, then he will certainly serve time."

"I'm not afraid, if that's what you mean. I find life more frightening than death," she repeated as though automatically Marlene Dietrich's lines in _Dishonored_. The plot stretched out from the center of her being as though she was following a hidden script that had always been inside her waiting to be performed. Wasn't she always meant for stardom of some kind? Wasn't that what she had wanted in her life, to lift it above the ordinary and turn it into something greater and more beautiful than any work of art hanging on the walls of some gallery like The Gagosian?

"I like you more and more," Halo said. "And I think you will like him very much. He's a _man for all seasons_ , if you like. No _lion in winter_ , but the sort of criminal that any woman would want to get to know better." He smiled portentously.

Laura wasn't sure what he was insinuating, but replied anyway. "Like I said before, I haven't agreed to anything and if you think I'm tempted by sex and money, then you're wrong. I just want to meet him and see how I feel. Men are expendable. But it's love and inner satisfaction that are so elusive."

"Inner satisfaction? I spent a year reading Eastern texts when I was younger. It convinced me that man could only save himself by action and not reflection. Man must quench his darkness with the fire of the will. And through this rarified will he will rise up and transform himself into something purer than any notion of God or Heaven. Only then can we transform ourselves and see the world from a new and elevated perspective. We have to change the world to change ourselves. Even the great jihadists of the East are only acting out of some pattern given to them by a religious text born from some artificial state of reflection. What they do is not pure action, it is action based on the lies of some Mullah preaching in a cave. That's why there is so much bloodshed in the world in the name of religion. The frustration of prayer showing up our own inner emptiness, our own inner enslavement."

A man in a red and white chequered suit stepped up to their table and offered Halo a flower. Halo pulled out a fifty-dollar bill and handed it to the man. The man responded by handing Halo an entire bouquet, but he shook his head and gestured toward Laura. "For the lady," Halo said. The man handed it to Laura and she accepted it, holding it to her nose like a glass of fine wine as she let its delicate perfume embrace her.

"Thank you," she said. No matter how liberated and modern she was, and there was really no doubt of this, there was always room for one more bouquet in her day. The gift of a flower was one of the most primal and beautiful gestures. Hidden in its trumpet were all the forces of love, death, sexuality, and violence.

"The Bourbon Kings," she said softly, brushing the petals against her nose.

"Very good, Laura. You are finally starting to understand."

"I haven't understood anything." She paused and savored the moment, wetting her lips with her tongue as she looked beyond Halo's dark huddled form. "I'm not even sure why I said that. But perhaps just admitting how little you know is the greatest act of understanding possible."

Halo pulled out an envelope and handed it to her. "I must take leave," he said in a voice that reminded her of people on the BBC world news network. "Inside is a ticket to the opening and a picture of your man Gregory. There is also a brochure with a map explaining how to get there. If you have any trouble, you can use the phone number I provided."

She opened the envelope as Halo watched expectantly. The man in the small passport sized color photo looked more like a model on the cover of GQ than the international criminal she had expected. Halo stood without a word and receded from the table exactly as he had approached it, moving quickly without seeming to move at all. Laura readjusted her belt and set the envelope on the table in front of her. She set a flower on top of it and stared out the window into the heart of the wild voluminous night.

### Chapter 2.3

Gregory set the feather duster back in his linen closet and collapsed on his bed. One of the worst hangovers he had ever encountered was plowing through his head like a Great Depression Okie in the middle of a drought. Everything in his apartment smelled like stale whiskey, even the freshly cut flowers in the vase on the table had a distinctive peaty odor to them. On television the Ayatollah was ranting in a gargled and frenzied tone of an exorcist. The people in the audience were dressed in long colored robes and the women had elegant white scarves draping down from their heads. Was there some hidden pattern or secret meaning behind the color scheme, some fragment of ancient wisdom an outsider like him couldn't even begin to grasp? It seemed Islam was everywhere these days. And who really needed it? What kind of religion would try to ban bikinis and extortionate money lending? Just one of these in isolation was bad enough, but both? The best mosques were certainly great feats of architecture, but was that enough to make up for the almost criminal lack of investment opportunities? With banks that weren't even allowed to charge customers a decent interest rate on loans, no wonder they had a revolution in the seventies. Gregory never quite liked the Ayatollah. Or rather, he never quite "got" the Ayatollah and why he was always shaking his fist and condemning the West and everything it stood for. Gregory had weathered at least two Persian girl friends, and they didn't really "get" the Ayatollah either. They would break out in uncontrollable fits of laughter whenever he was mentioned, and then suddenly get all gloomy and silent as if both of their parents had just died. So, who did "get" the Ayatollah, then? Why was he still around after all these years? Apparently he had passed away and was replaced by a new Ayatollah - with almost exactly the same name - who promised to be better but ended up being not much different from the first. It was like turning on the television every day for the next five hundred years and being forced to watch Buddy Ebsen clones tap dancing away on some lavishly decorated Las Vegas stage. I his defense at least Ebsen must have been hip at some time, an icon to some generation no matter how deluded. But when the white-bearded Ayatollah first showed up on the scene in the seventies he was already outdated. And because the seventies had already become an anachronism, the Ayatollah was really nothing more than an anachronism of anachronisms. A fossilized fossil. So why did people care what he had to say? Did anybody still care what the Bee Gees, or John Travolta had to say? No. But at least they cared back in the seventies. Maybe that meant the only thing you were supposed to "get" about the Ayatollah was that you weren't supposed to "get" him at all. Only the Ayatollah was supposed to "get" the Ayatollah. That was the message. That was the secret.

Yes, the world was becoming more and more offensive by the minute and Gregory's hangover was doing very little to mitigate the situation. It was only the other day that an old man had followed him for a few blocks in a devious attempt to corner him and ask for a hand out. When Gregory asked the man what it was for, he started waving his cane back and forth and shouting something in Italian as saliva dribbled from his mouth and onto his shirt. And when Gregory finally gave him ten dollars just to shut him up and suggested he buy a handkerchief, the man hit Gregory in the leg with his cane before darting behind a fruit stand. What reward was there for generosity?

Gregory went to the bathroom to fix his hair. When he got back the TV news had shifted to a mini-editorial on Canada's lackluster cooperation in the "War Against Terror". Apparently Justin Trudeau, the pretty new Canadian Prime Minister, considered it a breach of Canadian sovereignty (whatever that was) to deport a group of Syrian immigrants found hiding nerve gas capsules in their Vancouver apartment. If there was one thing Gregory hated it was Canada. He had seen it for the first time in the pages of some insipid picture book back in grade school. And that was enough to convince him it was a place no sane man would ever want to go. At least Iran was exotic and warm with beautiful women, but Canada was a land of cold bleak wheat fields with sheet metal shacks and the occasional methane tank hulking by the front door like a decommissioned warhead. Canada was not just a country, but a state of mind summed up by its long dull mornings where it was always snowing or raining and people never felt like doing anything. And the people? Canadian men were an army of waiters from those cheap steak and rib chains hiding behind ski chalet roofs and log cabin walls where you could get a sixty four ounce sirloin tip with an all-you-can-eat salad bar for less than a twenty. "Hi, my name is Ryan. I'm going to be your waiter tonight," they would say as they knelt like bland knights of the tundra beside your table holding their note pad to their chest like some bison-hide shield of justice.

The women in Montreal were perhaps Canada's only saving grace. With their long slender legs, they were true Borzois of the night. And when they looked you in the eye they always looked long and hard with a sweet suggestive smile. While the rest of the country was busy harboring terrorists and getting bad haircuts, the damsels of Montreal would be there drinking you under the table as they primed you for a voyage to their hotel rooms. They had names like Marie-Anne, Anne-Marie (or occasionally something more exotic like Coco) and they smelled like all those things any red-blooded man adored: the rich and honeyed autumn, the bright primordial spring with those whiffs of promise rising flame-like from the dark and crystalline shores of the night. They left you shriveled and naked in the pale burnished morning desperately searching your room for that little scrap of paper they might have left their phone number on. Since his first and only visit to Montreal, he had always longed to go back. Who needed Paris when you had _La Belle Province_?

Yet for all its wonder of slick warm hair and unfathomable nights, whatever Montreal had to offer was more than nullified by Toronto. Gregory had been there just once, but that was enough. It was on a business trip and he stayed at the downtown Sheraton – a bleak Stalinist construction posing as modern architecture. The suite was small and glum, like those he had seen in his deepest and most suffocating nightmares. "How is it down in America?" the Canadians would repeatedly ask him over their glasses of dark draft that tasted like a cross between Budweiser and molasses and was always cited by Canadians as a major reason why their country was better than the US. The tones of their voices were always ones of smug pity and veiled mockery, like people pretending to sympathize with a wealthy uncle facing an unforeseen bankruptcy.

Toronto girls, as he quickly learned, all seemed to wear acid washed jeans and black tee shirts with beer slogan decals ironed on the breast. They came across as strong and hardy like many girls he had met in the mid-west – places like Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Dakotas – but instead of the cheerful lumberjack's daughter smiles he had come to love, Toronto women broadcast to the world a look of protracted disgust mixed with airs of cultural superiority. So in despair he ventured out of the Sheraton business center one night in search of a woman who might save him from all the boredom of Canadian moneymen and all their talk of hockey, US foreign policy, and Quebec separatism. But he found nothing but a Serbian prostitute standing there on the street corner spitting at the pavement as he walked by. As if that wasn't enough, she seemed to think she was superior to him as he stood there trying to be nice, selflessly searching for some common thread that might unite them and make his evening more bearable. But in the end he gave up and walked away. And for all his efforts he wasn't even spared the spit at his heels that inevitably came from behind. This was enough to convince him that Canadians were nothing more than a bunch of traitors and hypocrites. They were self-righteous Pharisees of the worst kind, claiming to be better than Europeans and Americans but having nothing to offer of their own but a bunch of dry puckered faces and moronic jeers amidst an ocean of flannel shirts and Molson Canadian. They didn't take a stance on anything except for anti-Americanism, and even then only for the sake of it. America was bad because it supported Israel. But it was also bad because it didn't enter into WWII early enough to save the Jews. There was no way you could win against the Canadians.

Gregory tore open the curtains and looked outside. Manhattan shouted out at him with all its dizzying array of traffic lights; it dragged him by the collar dead center into its glorious ocean of yellow cabs streaked in Rubenesque brush strokes across the monumental canvas of the evening. It seemed his hangover was finally lifting. Yes, he thought as he mentally prepared himself for the night's art opening at the Gagosian, it was certainly a blessing that he wasn't stuck in Toronto. He was a high-ranking investment official. He had better things to worry about than igloos and maple syrup. He breathed a voluminous sigh of relief and stepped away from the window.

He turned off the television and grabbed his waxed linen raincoat. There was still enough time to grab a quick drink before the art opening. He breezed out the door and into the art deco antique elevator. The cables vibrated slowly like strings of a giant bass instrument as the intricately decorated metal and wood chamber moved downwards through the floors of the apartment building. Where was the rest of the band? Were the lights somehow playing jazz clarinet to the tune of the cables or were they meandering off on their own photonic solo? The elevator door slid open and he stepped out onto the cool marble floor of the front lobby.

"Hey, Mike," he said to the doorman, a smiling black man dressed in double breasted blue suit that fit so tightly it could have been painted to his body.

"How's my man?" They shook hands.

"Out to an art opening," Gregory replied.

"Could be worse. My old lady keeps me in all the time. My only freedom is watching the ball game."

"I've got money on the Knicks," he said. "Make sure you root for me when I'm gone.

"You got it."

Of course Gregory had money on the Knicks. These days you had to have your money in everything from bubble gum cards to Swiss banks. The market was too unpredictable. If you kept your cash in one place it didn't go anywhere. It withered away in the desert winds of volatility. But when your money was out there grooving to the strobe lights of the investment world it invariably found other money. Then it winked at it, seduced it, and finally had sex with it. That was it. Money mated. Money fucked if you gave it the chance. You had to let your money fuck or you would end up getting fucked by your money. That was how you got it to multiply. That was the secret. You needed all the right lubricants to make sure it flowed more smoothly. You needed perfume, wine, and cocaine to get it in the mood. And when you took it back to your pad for a quick romp in the sack, you had to make it breakfast in the morning to make sure it didn't leave you in a bad mood. After you sent it on its way you had to give it all the tender love and support it needed to make sure it made it through those difficult times leading up to the moment of birth, that ultimate moment of multiplication. And that was best done in secret. It was always better to let your money fuck in darkness. That way nobody ever knew when the babies came along and reared their ugly little heads. That way no one ever suspected.

Gregory jumped in a taxi and gestured with his hands for the driver to keep driving in the same direction.

"It's way down that way. Just keep on going till you hit Union Square. Then take a right and I'll tell you where to go after that. It's in the Meat Packing District."

"So, you having a good time tonight?" the driver asked through the veil of his thick foreign accent. He was dressed all in white as though he had just stumbled in from a trek across the Sahara desert. His skin was deep black, making Gregory crave for dark ginger cake, the kind that's served hot with whipped cream, and a heavy gold necklace was draped around his neck.

"Where are you from?" Gregory asked with genuine curiosity, as everyone knew that taxicabs were the classrooms of the future. Somalia was his first guess. It was a country where children carried pistols and the sun baked away any hope of recovery from years of war. It had recently become fashionable amongst a certain sector of left wing pseudo-intellectuals, but it was also a place where no one had ever been or wanted to go. Had any Somalis ever even been there?

"Kenya, man. I come here when I was twenty. That was five years ago. Life is better here in many ways, but still no soul. People are happier back home with less, but it's just too much da struggle, ya know."

"I can't imagine," said Gregory. And he was right. He couldn't. It wasn't that he had never traveled, as he had been all over the world in his early teens on five star tours and luxury cruises with his parents. He knew what the rest of the world was like without ever having really lived in it, floating through it in his bubble of wealthy rebellion. New York taught him everything he needed to know. As a teen he attended a private school run by Pentecostal nuns who considered high school proms a direct expression of the "Prince of Darkness". But he managed to sneak away at lunch enough times to stockpile a collection of more disco records than anyone he had ever met. By the time he was fifteen he had original pressings of every form of funk and dance music known to man and by the time he was sixteen he had managed to smuggle every type of drug into every type of bathroom in his school without once being caught. And the nuns never had a clue what was going on. They trusted him wholeheartedly and regarded him as the most well mannered youth in the school. But what did they know? Only a few years later, as a young adult at Harvard, he had blossomed into a flower of the nightlife, a sexual centurion of the first magnitude. But in spite of all his female conquests, he had never really done anything to leave that bubble of wealth that followed him wherever he went. He was always an insider wondering deep into the anxious calico night what it was like outside, _really_?

Gregory's brain stopped working as the taxi pulled past Union Square. A police light cast a blue tarp over the world and he thought he could smell raw meat somewhere. He felt tired and took a deep breath.

"Left or right, man?"

"Huh?"

"You said you would tell me when we got to Union Square which way I should turn, like."

Gregory looked around. He felt like a baby that had just struggled its way into the world only to find that it was better where he was before. The blue light dissipated and then there was only black with the occasional smear of brilliant white reflected off the road.

"Right," he said. He felt the world solidify again. Everything was suddenly clear. The cab swerved into the right lane, cutting off a bus as it did so, and then accelerated to the next set of lights. Gregory was breaking through to the other side. He was ripping into a new and strange world of his own making. It was here. He was here. It was now.

"What next?"

"Straight to the left for four blocks and then turn into the first alley. There's a black door..."

"Wait, man. I don't have a tape recorder in my head.

Gregory eased off and smiled. His mind turned to the coming evening. The show would be first class, he was certain. Gregory knew his art. He knew it as well as he knew his wine and his women. He could tell the difference between a Miro, with its rounded disembodied forms vaguely resembling humans or animals yet somehow closer to pure abstraction, and a Klee, aglow with its hovering bars of color that looked like something a child might have pulled off with a box full of Crayola crayons, as well as he could tell the difference between the jelly texture of a woman's breast and her taut soft rear, or the scent of Givanche on a woman's neck from that of Fendi just behind her ears. He was one of the new barbarians. He had read everything from Steinbeck to Superman. He knew in a heartbeat which part of Cuba a cigar originated from by just smelling the second hand smoke on somebody's lapel. He was devastating, fit, and ready to rock as much as he was ready to rave. But most of all, he was sex incarnate and ruthlessly so. He knew a white hot panty fuck from an Amazonian hothouse fuck, even from a distance. Or the wham-bam-thank you-ma'am from the back-alley slam. He was an expert in fucks of every kind, subdividing and classifying them into their respective genus and phyla as he collected them like species of butterfly in some glass case at the Museum of Natural History. It was a vast scholarly Valhalla with so many questions remaining to be asked and answered. Was it tougher now to get a panty fuck now than it was during the Reagan years? Did Louis XIV fuck differently than Louis XVI? And what about Robespierre or Marat? Was there an air of revolution in the way the fucked? And how did this affect the world economy? Did fucks trend over time like stock commodities? One day "CFO" might even come to mean a collateralized fuck obligation instead of chief finance officer. If you could pool sub prime mortgages into a CDO could you not also pool sub prime panty fucks \- those low end quickies in the bathrooms of seedy nightclubs, scent of urine on the floor and only the light of a single overhead bulb to guide your hips - into a CFO comprised of all the money owed by Johns to their various pimps, rated in risk according to how likely the pimp was to kick your ass if you failed to pay up? And if so, you could also sell credit default swaps betting that all the Johns wouldn't pay back, and then pool all these insurance bonds together into one huge reeking "CFO squared": a whole new economy based on the most primordial need of every human being! His mind reeled at the possibilities as he reveled in the city's hot wet lips now glistening there before him. He wanted their lipstick smeared all over his face and teeming member.

_"Hashtag_ _#Pantyfuck!"_ he shouted obstreperously out the window, his heart brimming over with the glee of a child discovering a motel ice dispenser for the first time. He would have to tweet this glorious phrase as soon as he had a chance. He shouted it once again, even louder than the first time, but the driver didn't seem to notice and neither did anyone else on the sidewalks, as the car continued to wend its indifferent way through the rumble of the evening's traffic.

A few minutes later the cab pulled up to the black door and he handed the white-clad sub-continental a twenty.

"Hey, alright, man."

Gregory nodded his head and sprang out the car door. There was a small line up to the black door. He went to the front and walked in. The sound of dark techno filled the narrow corridor, lit with strings of tiny Christmas lights like a passageway to some great nativity, as he made his way into the inner chambers of the Gagosian. He was ready for whatever the unholy Gods of art and the nightlife had in store for him.

### Chapter 2.4

According to the map Halo had given Laura, the Gagosian was only a two blocks away from the 8th Ave subway station. A retro mauve VW van revved its engine in front of her as she walked across an intersection. It growled for an instant before lunging back into motion, making a loud screech as it tore around the corner. She coughed again and threw the napkin in a wastebasket by the curb. Sickness always brought the best out in her. Whenever she was sick, or more precisely, when she was either coming down with a flu or just recovering from one, she felt strangely more alive and aware of herself and her surroundings. There were always a few hours of giddiness and a state of heightened imagination before the first traces of a sore throat began to manifest itself. She would feel light-footed and tingly all over. She would wonder why she had been bottled up in such a dull life for so long without ever really noticing it. During these moments she was always most apt to throw caution to the wind and run with whatever or whoever the evening had in store for her. This was why on that cold nuclear night, edging on feverish and weak, yet somehow still lively and open as she shivered under the floodlight of the moon, she allowed herself to receive that first H-bomb kiss from Johnny Enzyme, the half-life of its silk and leather fallout not even beginning to show its years. And whenever she finally emerged from of a serious cold or flu, she felt that she was waking up for the first time. From the ashes of every convalescence was always born a new spring, a revelation of life in all its glorious affirmation. The things in her day of which she had long grown tired reverberated with a new sense of radiant pleasure. A cup of tea was a spring of newfound wisdom. A flower bud hanging from a long thin branch was once again a symbol of love and beauty. Music exploded in a new panorama of energy and sound. Life was suddenly more engaging on all its wildest and most incandescent fronts.

And it was in this state that she walked down the narrow corridor towards the main exhibit room of the Gagosian. She had never been here before but once read that Larry Gagosian started out selling velvet art on the corner of Fountain and Fairfax and that _Sonic Youth's_ Kim Gordon worked for him back then when she was still a teenager. On the front door hung a colorful poster advertising the opening: _Jason Stern, Dialogues_. There were diaphanous clouds of blue mist in the background and silhouettes of what looked like cisterns dominating the foreground. She had never heard of him, but there was a good review she read on Facebook for a group show he had participated in a few weeks earlier in nearby Chelsea with some other artists from a new DC cooperative. The article described him as "a revivalist painter from the West Coast working in the area of non-classical portraits". Laura had always been a lover of art, but only in a passive way; she never aspired to be a painter herself but always took pride in being a knowledgeable spectator. It was only in the details of her own personal life that she sought to be an artist, so why should she put herself out any further by trying to be the master of two crafts?

An tall albino male approached her. He was wearing a bright blue bandana as a necktie over a Stooges T-shirt with jeans and a Tux. There was a large gold ring looped through his left ear that made Laura think of Mr. Clean. He looked at her inquisitively and tilted his head.

"You might not be..." he said with an unexpected Southern accent.

"Laura Chain," she relieved him the strain of guessing. She bit lightly into the nail on her index finger as she wondered what to say next. The man looked strangely into her eyes as though he was trying to communicate some subliminal message.

"Ah...I believe you are on the guest list," he finally said. She was dazed for a moment wondering who could have put her there, before surrendering to the idea that Halo must have done something to make sure she got in without any trouble. "Why don't you come with me," the man said. His voice was slow and wet, gurgling with something like the mystery of the Louisiana swamps.

He gestured for her to follow him into a large room that seemed to be the center of the party. A group of self-important men in tweed suits - no doubt journalists and critics - had gathered in the middle of the floor talking loudly as though they wanted to let everyone know they had arrived. One of them had a ponytail that fell halfway down his back and a camera slung around his shoulders. He kept pointing at a sculpture in the corner and shrugging his shoulders as if to voice his disapproval. There were large and small paintings on each of the four walls that looked like photographs, they were so realistic, yet they depicted things almost too horrible to be true: a man having anal sex with a cat trapped in a box with holes drilled in for its limbs and anus; a woman holding a child in one arm while trying to tear off its arm with her teeth and mouth.

"I wouldn't bother," the man with the ear loop said as he casted his gaze towards the photos. "It's all going to get rave reviews, but it's out of my control."

Laura nodded her head and shrugged her shoulders. She felt relaxed, almost sleepy. Anything could happen and probably would; in her state of sickness it didn't seem to matter. She wanted to let go of the world and be free at last. The man smiled broadly as a signal that she should share his ease with the surroundings. Then he leaned closer to her.

"Help yourself to the refreshments," he whispered in her ear. She heard an outburst of laughter from behind her followed by the sound of glasses clinking in unison. It seemed louder than she thought it should as though someone had suddenly turned the volume in the room up at that moment for her benefit, so she could hear something that she was supposed to hear but might have otherwise missed.

"Thank you," she whispered. The man walked quickly out of the room as if he was rushing off to catch a taxi that was waiting outside. She turned around to see a man of average height standing in front of a large painting. From his dignified posture and handsome profile she guessed she had already found the man she was looking for.

Laura watched him from behind for almost a minute before she took a step closer. He looked like a person of some distinction, but one that was certainly not naïve to current trends in modern culture. Learned and sophisticated, but still plugged in at a grass roots level. There was also something awkward about him, like a sheltered child in a man's body, that she found ingratiating. He was lost in reflection like a thinker standing a hill as he looked down upon some misty valley pondering the nature of existence. One leg was straight and the other bent such that only the toes were touching the ground. He was wearing an elegant micro-check suit that hugged his slim figure so tightly she could even make out the rings along his spine. Rubbing his chin with his thumb, he stared at one corner of the picture as if he was decoding something written there in small letters, almost too tiny to discern. From behind he looked like the kind of man that might be worth talking to, or at least for a moment.

As she approached him she thought, or rather she felt, that he could not possibly be guilty of anything more serious than the occasional bout with excess: too much expensive wine, or one two many girls in his life. Perhaps standing in front of such a gruesome painting made him look more innocent than he was. The canvas depicted a man strapped in a chair while a second man stood behind him brandishing what appeared to be a glowing fire poker. She didn't like it. It belonged on the cover of some Seven Eleven magazine like "Heavy Metal" and not in an art gallery. She pulled up alongside the man until they were shoulder to shoulder. It was then that she noticed he was wearing cologne. It seemed like an expensive scent but she couldn't place it. Mace always wore cologne, but only the cheap stuff. Even Aqua Velva was a few rungs up from what he splashed on in the morning, dug up in ethnic convenience stores, specially priced so immigrants getting off the boat from whatever country the store owner was from could afford to buy some for their first job interview. New Yorkers were generous that way, but only to their own ethnic groups. New York must have been the biggest microcosm for tribal warfare on the planet. Wars were fought here that weren't fought anywhere else in the world. Every conceivable battle was taking place here at every conceivable time: country versus class; pedigree versus patriotism; region versus race; color versus cash. The modern world was always at war. And when there wasn't a reason for war the media created it. That's what years of living in New York had taught her. That's what the sidewalk whispered in her ear one lonely winter night replete with popcorn and insomnia as she walked around her apartment block ringing a small brass bell trying to find the right pitch for a lullaby that would make her fall asleep once and for all. After two hours of frustration she tossed the bell into the gutter and went up to her bedroom to sleep, and the sidewalk never whispered to her again.

"What I admire about this work," Gregory blurted out as he suddenly turned to her, "is its control of motion and contour." He swallowed, almost choking on his saliva as if he expected someone else to have be standing there as he waited for her response. The woman beside him was nothing less than stunning. She had the face of an ivory goddess, and eyes as pure and powerful as the ocean. No matter how many women he had slept with, every new one made him feel like a rookie; dating was a potentially dangerous situation that called for the utmost caution and prudence. Gregory knew he was not a true Casanova and never would be. He knew his limitations. He had his secret weaknesses. In spite of his numerous conquests, he had never made love to a woman without thinking she was special in some way. Even in one-time encounters with call girls he would walk away with the empty sensation of a boy leaving behind a favorite shirt, the absence of which would send shock waves through the rest of his life. Yet this feeling also filled him with a surrogate sense of piety. As long as he was missing a woman he once made love to, staying up late at night wondering what she would say if he ever called her and asked her out again, he felt like he was a good person. But if he ever did call them back, maybe his bubble would burst and she would expose him for being a hypocrite or somehow insincere. That's what kept driving him forward to meet new women. The will to escape that potential criticism and find a source of at least temporary purity and acceptance.

"I think it's good. Or, I think that it somehow..." She paused, struggling for words that were both honest and unpretentious, but wouldn't risk exposing her as a philistine.

"It's coming off a bit flat to me," he chaffed, "even if it was intended to be a study on flatness."

"But it still speaks to me. No. That sounds too vague. Too sixties."

"Sixties?" Gregory felt himself slipping into a groove, his groove. He always felt comfortable talking about changing fashions and social movements. That's what made him different. How many financiers were equally at home discussing The Sex Pistols and sugar futures?

"Yes," Laura said. She sensed he liked her remark. Perhaps she had struck on the right combination of words to impress him. "You know."

"Yes," he said. "I think I know what you mean." Hippies never knew what they were talking about. They always had the best dope and drove around in vans stacked to the roof with obscure religious texts as they leaned out the window shouting wild condemnations at everything they passed. A hippie could dig a conspiracy out of something as harmless and homespun as a slice of carrot cake.

"Do you read much?" she asked. Then she felt awkward for suddenly changing the topic. He kept looking straight at her as though he was trying to read something further in what she said.

"Yes, of course. Of course. Everyone should read a book a week. That's what I think. I was just in Borders today..."

"No," she exclaimed. "I can't stand Borders. It's the Burger King of the book world. The last time I was there..." She stopped, sensing a mild disappointment in his eyes. Maybe he liked Borders and the damage was already done. She smiled and then continued in a more positive tone. "Yes. I was looking for the Bagavad Gita and all I could find was a dozen secondary texts on religion. Then I noticed they didn't even have a single copy of the Koran. Not that I was looking, but..." He gazed at her with a kind of transparency that suggested he could see through her false enthusiasm. She exhaled loudly and shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said. She offered him her hand. "Laura Chain," she said softly but firmly.

"Gregory Walden," he said. He took her hand and pressed it affectionately between his palms before letting go and offering her his card. It was his signature gesture. It was his way of showing that he cared. Woman who took him as an operator always wondered in retrospect how they could have fallen for such an obvious trick. But were they wrong? Not even Gregory knew. "I can tell you're not a New Yorker. You have a look of the mountains in you. I can almost smell that sub alpine meadow in your hair."

"Very good. So, then, who is my favorite writer?"

"Favorite writer..." He let her hand drop. Was it Jack London? No. If that were true she would have been at a dog show and not an art opening. Herman Hesse? No. He could always tell the Euro-hippies from a mile away. They looked exactly like normal hippies but hung around in hostels and insisted on renting Audis and BMWs wherever they went. Norman Mailer? Of course not. Those people had cottages in the woods and talked about their friends on faculty at Harvard. Gregory pulled his head back and looked at her like a person trying to figure out an optical illusion. She smiled and looked down at his shoes, blushing.

"I can't seem to make a good guess. But you do blush. That's a good sign. That means you read Machiavelli."

"What?" she protested in playful outrage.

"Machiavelli. I can always tell someone who reads Machiavelli by the way they blush."

"How so?"

"It seems to me that people who blush a lot are always wrapped up in their own feelings. They're so conscious of how others view them because they regard themselves as the center of the world."

"That's exactly the opposite of what I'd say. People who read Machiavelli want to go out and grab whatever they can. They never think of themselves or their role in the world but only what they can take from it."

"I disagree. The Machiavellian is the greatest of all blushers. Those who don't blush quickly and often are selfless and are always looking at others and what they can do to help."

"Whatever the truth, you still haven't guessed my favorite writer. And besides, I've never even read Machiavelli."

"Maybe you blush, but just not often enough."

"At least you guessed that right."

"I know," he said with almost adolescent excitement.

"What?" She blinked twice and looked to the side at a small group of Japanese men that just walked past.

"Wait...Dostoevsky! It's the Russian sense of intrigue in your eyes. And don't say anything if I'm wrong. If you haven't read any Dostoevsky you should. I'm sure he'd be your favorite writer once you gave him a chance. In fact, even if you _have_ read Dostoevsky and didn't like him, you would now. Now that we met."

"Not even close," she exclaimed. "You lose." She smiled gluttonously.

Gregory shrugged his shoulders, accepting defeat. "Is there a consolation prize?"

"Yes," she said. "They're serving wine."

Laura turned and walked towards the mini bar where a small line had gathered. A short Latino man wearing a white shirt and bow tie was filling a glass with club soda from a dispenser hose. Gregory was certainly not the man she had expected. There was something frail and even childlike about him that made all of Halo's talk of international money laundering seem on the far side of implausible. As she watched him standing in front of the painting fixing his hair, she felt a motherly impulse to defend him. But what if she was wrong? Weren't the worst criminals always able to convince people of their innocence? Some of her old friends back in Portland were drug dealers and bikers. But they were good people. They were only having a good time. Just like her. A few bottles of Jim Beam out in the woods with a few ex-cons was just clean and honest fun. She would reserve judgment.

She ordered a glass of white wine from the bar and went back to find Gregory. He was standing in the corner peering at her with deep and engaging eyes as though he had been waiting for her and wanted to let her know.

"Changed your mind?" he asked.

"About?"

"Come on. I saw you reading _Crime and Punishment_ over there."

"You should just admit defeat and get a drink."

"Good idea," he said. He wiped a small down feather off his lapel. He walked over towards the mini bar. Who was this fascinating young woman? What color of underwear did she wear? Red? Blue? No. She was a work of art and wearing colored underwear would be like putting a strobe light in the Louvre. Why hadn't he met her before? Did she have a man in her life? If so, he was on the way out. Independent women like her always had a man somewhere. Tucked away in one of their many closets they always had someone. And the chances were that he was some jackass with a beard and a Jeep that looked like he just got back from hunting moose in the great outdoors.

Gregory helped himself to a pre-poured glass of the generic Cabernet from the bar and did a quick scan around the room. The party was getting into full swing. Katzberg from _The Times_ was standing in the corner smoking his pipe, no doubt spewing forth some nonsense about mind, race, and culture in the age of the "post modern conquest". They had met a year before at a fundraiser for an art house cinema in SoHo. Standing right beside Katzburg, but facing in the other direction, was Pauline Laplace, a French dog breeder turned art collector. She always wore the same pair of tiny wire-rimmed spectacles and walked in a delicate, hunched posture that gave the impression of a benign vulture. When anyone brought up the topic of marriage or relationships, she would always start in on her ex-husband, a dissident artist from Bratislava who had moved to New York in the seventies. She claimed to have given him everything; she supported him, pouring endless money into his warehouse projects, only to discover he was growing opium poppies in his studio and using the crude morphine as bait to seduce young models. Everyone who knew had heard the story more times than they could count but listened every time anew in hope that she might buy one of their paintings. On the other side of the room, standing directly under the door frame, was Jack Burkowicz, a successful sculptor who had moved from LA a few years earlier to open up a "space" where people could gather together to read poetry, host raves, and show their art. Gregory liked Burkowicz. He seemed to understand the importance of throwing parties for the rich patrons of the art world. Most artists were angry tormented men who claimed to love nature and mankind, but really only loved themselves. Artists were never true humanitarians. They were always too hung up on their own problems to care what the rest of the world was doing. True humanitarians were always bankers, accountants, and millionaires. They were the great white trinity of hope. That was the way of the future as it was also the way of the past. The Romans could never have tried and crucified Jesus without money, and lots of it. And that's what Burkowicz seemed to get. No money, no resurrection, no Italian Renaissance, no artists.

Gregory walked through the crowd over to where Laura had been standing, but when he got there she was gone, leaving just an empty space on the floor directly beside a fat man balancing a fez on his small, bean-shaped head. Gregory looked around the room. She was nowhere to be found. He walked back to the bar and retraced his steps back to the painting. She still wasn't there.

"Excuse me," he said to the man wearing the fez, but he just turned around and walked away. A mass of tailored shoulders concealing all but the tip of the man's beard from Gregory's line of site was all he could see until finally even the beard disappeared behind a woman wearing hot pants and an "I love NY" tee shirt. She was holding a pink balloon in one hand and a noisemaker in the other. Where are you, young Ms. Chain? Gregory asked an invisible companion under his breath. He bit into his right index finger knuckle, a nervous habit of his, and then polished off his glass of wine in a single fretful gulp. She was gone.

Laura listened to the metronome clicking of the pavement beneath her feet as she walked home. The street was glistening with a fresh coat of rain. Maybe this time it would finally start whispering to her again. The cold wind dug into her legs, locking its grip on her knees as if to drag her down into some nether world from which she would never rise again. This was the part of being sick she never liked. Descending. The euphoria phase had ended and now there was just the sickness. Even though she knew she would be coming back, it somehow felt like she never would. She looked up at a traffic light and sneezed into an imaginary napkin. It was dark outside and the lights of the city were all a blur. One big Byzantine blur.

### Chapter 2.5

Laura tapped her teaspoon impatiently on the table as she waited for Mace. He was already half an hour late and she was starting to get impatient. There was a heavy feeling in her limbs, but she felt light in the head, as though her body had become too dense and her soul was forced to escape to find more suitable refuge. She stood up and rounded the table in a series of frayed kestrel arcs before sitting down to start tapping the teaspoon on the table again. Since her meeting with Gregory she felt like an offering of nerves left open at a dinner party beside a plate of oysters and crackers for all the guest's enjoyment. What, exactly, had he meant by "Russian sense of intrigue"? While most men later told her she had come across hard and inscrutable on their first date, was there some way Gregory had seen inside her, excavating beneath the polished marble of her guarded countenance into the secret mausoleums of her most distant past?

Perhaps it was the regular news of the Russian-Afghan war on TV while she was growing up that had initially spurned her interest, but when she was a girl she was always fascinated with the East, especially Afghanistan. New York made her long for those days in Portland when she used to hide in her room and read books about Marco Polo and the great Asian trade routes. Whether it was the descriptions of the rough mountainous terrain, impressed on the classroom globe in tight rippling folds of painted cardboard and plastic rising from a contour map, the silky mane and bell-bottomed ankles of the Afghan hound, the opium and hashish cartels with all their AK-47 delegations garbed in red and blue robes like the three kings on their way to Bethlehem, or just the name and the way the tall mountainous "A" fell gradually into a valley of "f" and "gh" (all in alphabetical sequence) to rise a little with a sharp precipitous "t" only to fall on the noble coda "a" and "n", Afghanistan was always a source of great mystery to her.

When she was eight she used to stay in bed until noon on Saturdays sipping Russian Caravan, its dense floral perfume gently titillating her imagination, while she read picture books describing great battles waged in sand and rock against legions of camels and flailing scimitars. She would close her eyes and wonder if - no, even hope that - one day a swarthy Afghani prince would take her away to some secret palace floating in the dunes. Years later, on her fourteenth birthday when these fantasies were long forgotten, Star gave her a small embroidered purse with tiny silver beads sewn into the fabric. Inside was an aluminum foil ball concealing a small and mysterious black nub. Afghani hash. She took the gift as a secret message from some unseen Mohammedan Angel that it was time to follow up her impulses as a child and pursue her fascination with the East. So over the next two years she soaked up whatever she could find about the ethnic wars in Afghanistan, the political instability and the botched attempts to colonize it by the Soviets or whoever else dared try. Kipling had even written a verse about how when you were wounded in the mountains of Afghanistan it was better to take your own life than wait for the women to come and cut you to pieces. Afghanistan was black hole of foreign interests, a war-torn lunar landscape where China, Russia, India, and the West struggled to gain control of that what ultimately could never be controlled. It was a nothingness, a singularity, the dark bliss she once felt with Johnny Enzyme the one time she tried heroin, a thing you could not see or touch, but something that everyone wanted, everyone craved and begged for. And that was how she saw herself as she stepped out of the seclusion of her childhood after her fifteenth birthday and started receiving phone calls from teenage boys for the first time in her life. She was Afghanistan. That was her secret. Her soul was a rough and unforgiving terrain, something bitter and inhospitable that everyone craved to own but no one could ever possess. After the Soviets left, the economy of Afghanistan had disintegrated into a self-destructive opium trade, violent and exotic, but no less dark a comedy than its wars. So, even when it was left in peace it still had a way of cannibalizing itself and leaving only ruin. And her soul was no different. The few men it allowed unpunished on its terrain, men like Johnny Enzyme and Stork, were just lucky she was too naïve deep down inside to treat them like anyone else.

It was only after she starting dating Mace that she began to see her previous lovers in her dreams. Before that she dreamed only of sex with complete strangers, if she dreamed of men at all. She was in a large city with cold heavy rain coming down like a bitter indictment against mankind, waiting at some remote bus stop for a bus she wasn't sure would arrive – or even existed at all - that would take her to a second bus stop on another end of the city where she might be able to catch another potentially fictitious bus to meet Mace before he left town for good. Busses labeled with the strange and incomprehensible numbers passed by and opened their doors to her. Should she take them? Would they somehow take her closer to Mace, or to some place where she could catch yet another bus that would bring her one step closer to him? Why she had started to have these dreams, she didn't quite know. Had someone sneaked into her secret Afghani palace and threatened to live there forever? And if so, was that person Mace? She had heard that in dreams sometimes an image of a current lover was really just an old lover wearing a mask. And if it was really Mace in her dreams, did that mean she loved him? She didn't think so. But it meant something. That much was for sure. It really meant something, cross her heart and hope to die.

When she looked up from the table, Mace was standing beside her as though he had been watching for several minutes. He bit into a licorice pipe and spit it out into the kitchen sink. "You shouldn't leave your door open, it's dangerous." His eyes became two pools of dark water. "Everybody is ready to fight, he said, "but nobody knows who for. That is the problem with the world. A billion souls with a billion weapons and only one idea: fight for what you believe in. But what does everyone believe in? There just isn't enough room or time to find out."

"No," Laura said. It wasn't an answer to anything he had said, but more a reaction or expression of how she felt. "No," she said again. Then she buried her head in his stomach.

"I have some bad news," he said. The dark pools dried up. Laura lifted her neck to peer into his eyes. "You know that guy I said who fingered me and said I stole his wallet? It looks like he went to the police."

"How?"

"They have my picture on file from previous convictions..."

Laura grabbed his hand and squeezed it, but he quickly pulled it away. "No," she said. But this time it was with more empathy. This time it meant something different. This time it was a word of love.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

_"No_ , they won't get you this time. It's a word of protection. _No_ , to them and all their plans. _No_ , to all those jerks in finance I have to deal with every day at work. _No_ to that guy who went to the police." And _no_ to Stork, she thought, but didn't say. He never fell for her and one day he would have to pay. A deadly invitation back to her secret Afghanistan.

"A man has to step away from things sometimes," Mace speculated. He was suddenly more philosophical. "The modern world gives you ideas of a kind no man should ever be proud for entertaining. I just saw a television show about the inevitable collapse of civilization due to the third world and all its horrors and poverty leaking into the developed world. The host said it was only a matter of time before there were enough radical religious groups taking root in the US to start demanding sovereignty. ISIS-squared. It mentioned how followers of the Rajneesh had once tried to infect a whole community with food poisoning to make their chances in a local election more favorable. If the effort had been successful who knows how far it might have gone as the group intended to gain foothold in local politics just as a first step towards US domination?"

"What are you getting at?"

"When things like this happen – for example, that finance idiot saying I stole his wallet when I never did just because he didn't like my looks – I start to think the ISIS is right and the US deserves to be blown up."

"Don't worry," she said. She pressed her head into his stomach once more. "Nothing will happen. I'll be your alibi. I'll say you were with me. I promise. There's no way they can prove anything."

Mace held up the half-eaten licorice pipe. "What if the Dutch tried to take us over?" he asked as though it were a viable possibility worthy of consideration. "I think we'd all be forced to eat licorice and shoot publically funded methadone up our asses every day. That's what would happen." He broke out in self-applauding laughter.

"New York was once New Amsterdam, after all." Laura shook her head and laughed lightly. "Dutch terrorism."

"As if flying an airplane into a building isn't enough." He shook his head and spit into the sink a second time. He stuffed the second half of the licorice pipe in his mouth and swallowed it ostentatiously. Then he walked over to Laura and pulled a magazine out of her hands. He took off his leather jacket, revealing his smooth pale skin and solid volumes of muscle, intricately detailed with tiny ripples, hairs, and veins - barely visible as Nile delta patterns resting just beneath his skin. He leaned over and kissed her.

"What are you doing?" Laura asked in a way that suggested she approved and wanted to continue so she could find out.

He unbuckled his leather pants and let them drop to the floor. He was wearing nothing underneath. His penis was half erect, larger and fuller than normal, but still hanging slightly downwards. Laura took it in her hand and held it with the breathtaking curiosity of a child holding a strange and beautiful animal. She pulled him towards her. Mace unbuttoned her cotton sweater and pulled it off her body, the light static charge pulling her hair up as it slid up and over her head. Beneath she was wearing a black bra with slightly worn straps.

Mace took one last look at her before letting his head drop to his chest. He was suddenly in the midst of a recurring daydream in which he is standing naked in a sailboat with Mara as she reeled in a giant swordfish before undressing herself and then putting handcuffs around his wrists. Mara was the girl who put him up to it. The girl who used her perfume and skin to send him to jail. She said she was Dutch, but she was really from somewhere else, some strange and distant place like India or Ceylon. Or was it Yemen? DKNY, he thought. Don't Kill No Yemenis. What a mistake that was. In the dream getting on the boat with her wasn't even his choice. Some invisible dream God made him do it. It just happened and he had no say in it. There were even babies screaming in the cabin and broken toys on the upper deck. Their babies. He used to dream it every night when he was in jail. It was a second life he was leading, one he never wanted and always dreaded slipping back into as he closed his eyes and tried to go to sleep.

Mace snapped back into the room and looked admiringly at Laura's delicate form. It was best that she never find out about Mara and what she had done to him. How he had fallen head over heels for her and how he made it to jail and what it had done to him. He took Laura's left breast in his palm, admiring its succulent ripe curves through the thin gauze of her white bed shirt. Like tropical fruit. Did all those spiffy advertisers she hung out with ever get to see her like this?

"You think you are rebelling against the world by using advertising as an outlet for your creative chaos. But it's really using you. The system always wins. It's the Kali Yuga."

"You'll never be a philosopher," she said. "When Armageddon comes everyone will be celebrating and smiling with bliss like the Satanists from _Rosemary's Baby_. You're focusing in on all the darkness...missing all the real signs. When everyone in the world is finally happy - that is what you really have to be afraid of." She was already undoing the clip behind her back, her elbow sticking up like that of an Indian goddess in the midst of some kind of primeval death dance.

"Ain't that so," he said. "But one thing you have to admit. The holy Mace is the one and only prophet of your heart. He wrote all its laws and etched them on invisible scrolls with his very own hands."

He took a rivulet of her hair and lifted it up to his nose. He inhaled deeply as if he were holding a new form of smelling salts in his hand.

"You don't etch things on scrolls. You etch into rock. You write on scrolls."

"Write the words of love," he said.

Laura unbuttoned her pants and let Mace take over until she was totally naked except for her panties. She was never happy with her legs – they were washer woman's whitened fence-post legs as far as she could see - but for some reason, with Mace leaned over her and the sound of traffic glittering in the night air with a low light in the room she was almost convinced they were sexy. Each was a blessed golden road to some place dark and lonely in the dead quiet of his heart. Her underwear was white, strangely mismatched with her bra. But it didn't matter to Laura. Underwear was as mystical as the mountains and plains of Afghanistan and to worry too much about matching it was almost a form of desecration.

"I love your neck," Mace proclaimed. He pulled off her panties and let his head drop upside down on her stomach. "And whoever said I wasn't head-over-heals in love with you?" he whispered in a deep, low voice that was at once soothing and provocative.

The pink light from outside started flashing and Laura's mind once again resonated with the sounds of that strange and exotic word: Byzantium, the wretched toxic word that refused to leave her alone since that first night she met Halo. It was obviously trying to tell her something, but who could say what?

"Head-over-heals," Mace repeated. The sound of his voice was drowned out by that of an ambulance from somewhere in the distance.

"Afghanistan," she mumbled too softly for him to hear. Or did she mean Byzantium? In her state of feverish arousal, she wasn't really sure anymore.

### Chapter 2.6

Gregory set his tablet down on the desk and then punched in a few numbers on its faintly illuminated keyboard. Perhaps Monte would actually answer this time. Gregory had just checked the weather forecast in Qatar and there was no reason Monte's plane should have been delayed. Gregory lifted the receiver to his ear and waited for a response through the dim crackle of the satellite network. His tablet screen rippled with wave upon wave of number sequences, as though he was playing a vast cosmic slot machine, before finally slowing down and coming to a stop on a single 14-digit number. He heard a click and the sound of a voice at the other end.

"Hello?"

"Monte?"

"Yes," the voice said. "Is this Gregory?"

"Who else would it be? Is there something you want to tell me?" Gregory smirked.

"You know I would never let you down. It could have been someone else. One of _them_ , even." The way he pronounced the word "them" sent a chill down Gregory's spine. It was unsettling to think that a shadowy mass of people known simply as "them" could be investigating him this very minute. People like "them" had no facial features and moved like specters as they plotted to bring down his life when he least expected it.

"No," said Gregory. He picked up his gold-tipped pen and scribbled a few abstract figures on a piece of paper. A circle. An ellipse. A square. "It is not one of _them_. Thank God."

"I'm in the bathroom now," Monte said. "We just landed. There is a place for me to sleep here. Thank God for that. A man needs his sleep in this day and age. A man has to have some solace. It's tough being The Carrier of the Voice. It has its rewards, but not many of them. I don't do this for the hours, you know."

"Don't worry - we're in the right business. Investors are the rock stars of today. People used to make albums now they make investments - if the Beatles had a second coming they would skip the music and just start, or better yet _be_ , a radical new hedge fund."

"But a billionaire has no individuality to his art - no Pollock vs. Jasper Johns - money is just money, with no art..."

"The art is in how it's made...and that is why your job is so important."

Monte had not been outside of an airport security zone for over three years. It was now possible by using e-tickets, credit cards, carry-on baggage, and whatever sleeping facilities could be found on planes and in modern airports – there were rent-by-the-hour sleeping chambers in the Honolulu airport no bigger than your average walk-in closet and more were cropping up every day – to live your entire life without ever having to meet a customs guard or cross an official border, while still travelling to every country on the planet. Monte was one of the first to recognize this. While there were no doubt many more like him, perhaps even conspiring with "them", The Carrier, as Monte was known for short, had been the pioneer and knew more of the ins and outs of the game than anyone else. How to elude detection. How to stay fit by speed walking from zone to zone. How to stay healthy while eating only airport food for years on end. The Carrier had been lucky enough on occasion to land in airports where there were not only gourmet restaurants, but even health spas, small movie theaters, and bookstores as large as public libraries. No one who knew him by his codename had ever met him face to face, and no one ever would. That was the deal and that was why he was so important.

"Only by constantly moving from one airport to another can a man transcend the prison of statehood and nationality and become one with himself, one with the godhead. It is nationalism that has destroyed the individual. We define ourselves according to what language we speak and what city we live in. We need to shatter all borders and completely destroy the concept of nation. The UN was just a start, and a very feeble one at that." The Carrier's voice became deep and raspy, like that of a man with a serious throat ailment. "People get so mired down in nationalism that they lose sight of the truly universal. I was almost tempted a few weeks ago to leave the security zone and step outside into the real world. It was a woman who caught my eye. For a moment I wanted to follow her. I wanted to propose to her right there on the spot. Settle down with her in Brussels or wherever the Hell she came from. I can still see the reflection of the lights off her sleek red hair. I can still smell her perfume. But then I stopped myself. I resisted the temptation to shed my garments of wisdom by stepping down into your imbecilic trough of a world."

"Good thing you didn't, but speaking of girls," Gregory diverted the conversation, "I met someone new,"

"Does she know about the project?"

"No. How could she? This is strictly personal. I never get involved with business people. But I'm telling you because I know you care and I know you would never try to interfere if something happened."

"I never have before. I encourage it."

"The New Finance is going very well. The money is starting to come in. But I need more. I think we have Henderson on board. But that isn't enough."

"I have the private keys for the Starlight account if you want them. Just make sure you use a virtual shredder program when you're finished typing them in on the terminal. Are you sure we aren't being bugged?"

"I just changed my number. I do so every week to avoid a SIM swap hack - and always use new proxies for my IP address. There are enough new cell phone networks popping up every day that it doesn't arouse suspicion."

"Just a second," he whispered. "There was a muffled sound and then a loud bang. "A man just lit up a cigar in the stall next to me. I can even smell his cologne underneath the smoke. We have to wait."

"Shall I call back?"

"I'll go to another stall and will be waiting for your call in exactly thirty minutes. I have to check to see if the flight to Seoul is still on time."

"I think this one is special."

"The girl?"

"I think so."

"Keep your senses about you. You are always most effective when you maintain your composure and don't get too involved."

"I don't think I can stop myself. I don't know how."

"You have before."

"I'm not what I used to be. Age sets in and makes you soften up. They say most violent crimes are committed by people under twenty one."

"You're not even thirty."

"I don't think I can stop."

"You'll have to try."

"I'll call back."

"Yes."

"Is it dark out yet?"

"No. Is it there?"

"Soon, I think."

Gregory set his tablet down on his desk. The screen had gone dark. Now wasn't the time. Without noticing, he had scribbled a Star of David on the sheet of paper in front of him. He scribbled over it in a rage of black ink. Then he opened his drawer and took out a Brazilian soccer magazine one of his clients had left behind several weeks ago. On the cover was a shot of Neymar holding a baby in his arms while he was simultaneously heading a soccer ball into a goal. Gregory had only been to Brazil once, to Sao Paolo - a city of concrete towers and endless traffic jams, like LA without the glamour of Hollywood. He was glad he never had to go back. It was a city for people like _them_ – bleak and angular, devoid of all hope, an empty shell of its own mock sensuality. It was hardly the place a few blue-colored cocktails and a Stan Getz solo made you think it was when you were having a quick drink at some Upper East Side Brazilian joint. The world was filled with lies and the image of Brazil was one of the biggest. That was the problem with people these days. The world was filled with hypocrites. They were everywhere. They were _them_. All you had to do was start with America and work your way outwards. Nobody had any principles anymore. Nobody but he and the Carrier.

Sure, some might dispute this claim, but only because they weren't perceptive enough to see how virtuous he was underneath it all. Indeed, he was often called an "asshole" and "womanizer", usually by women who didn't understand him. But these same women all once adored him until they found out he wasn't interested in them. They came up to him at parties and asked for his phone number. If he was unresponsive, they would label him as being cold. That was because if you slept with a woman, all Hell broke loose, but if you didn't sleep with the same woman, the consequences were always much worse. It was only three months ago that Tricia, a British journalist who was over on some kind of humanitarian scholarship, graced him with her presence at his apartment. After talking about world finance and recent vintages of port, she walked into his bathroom and came back totally naked holding a stick of incense in her hand. Normally he would have leapt at such an opportunity, but only two weeks before he had been called a "jerk" for trying to kiss a librarian from the Guggenheim on the first date, so he decided to play it safe and told the naked Tricia he wanted to get to know her better first before doing anything either of them might later regret. It was the gentlemanly thing to do. But as it turned out, Tricia turned white as a gravestone and walked straight to the bathroom, got dressed and marched out the door without even saying goodbye. The next four times he called her she hung up. And then the real scourge came. For the next six weeks every waitress in Manhattan scowled at him whenever he ordered and always served him half-filled drinks with shriveled olives speared by broken toothpicks and who knows what assortment of bodily fluids thrown in for free. Tricia obviously had connections. It was that scholarship of hers that gave her credibility and helped ruin his reputation.

Yes. The world was a circus of deception. Nobody understood anybody. Gays condemned the Republicans and Republicans condemned gays. But if anyone ever thought about it, the far right was the place to be if you were gay. J. Edgar Hoover was the first to key in on it and countless followed suit. There was even a gay Marxist cabinet minister in Holland who had been shot for being too right wing. Every gay man he ever met believed in wild excessive parties with mountains of coke and lavish beachside decorations. Such parties would never have been thrown in a leftist Obama state. Everyone knew that Lenin and Stalin banned homosexuality as an evil that only served to distract the good and strong worker. Only in a Republican state, where a man was free to horde as much money as he wanted, would such unbridled excess as was mastered and honed to perfection by the underground gay community, be possible. He wouldn't have been surprised at all if all that anti-gay propaganda he had heard from the likes of Gingrich and Bush was just a cover up for some kind of underground gay porn network they were running on the side. That was why it was best to be Republican. They were the winning team and the winning team always had the most fun.

"Fabulous," he exclaimed as he put the soccer magazine back in his drawer and gloated over the penetrating wisdom of his thoughts. He always admired gays for their dress sense, and often went to gay clubs to distance himself from the usual meatheads that patrolled the Manhattan nightlife on the lookout for "ass" and "pussy". "A new conspiracy," he declared with his right finger pointed up in the air. " _The official John Ashcroft gay bar_. Leave your underwear at the door." Hoover was a cross-dresser, so why not Ashcroft, Bush's former Attorney General?

"John Ass-Crotch," he shouted out the open window in the direction of a neighboring skyscraper stacked with fifty floors of insurance offices. "Come and get me!" he continued in a soft whisper. "I'll be waiting in my bed with a rose and a jar of Vaseline. You provide the crushed velvet love seat and I'll provide the pewter chandelier!"

On that note he lifted his feet to his desk and took a deep breath. He was sure he could still smell Laura's perfume prowling through the air. Or maybe it was on his collar. He sniffed his sleeve and then took a random sweep of his nose around the room. It was only his imagination. Yet, maybe it didn't have to be. Imagination today, reality tomorrow! It had been his motto since he was a freshman at Harvard. If he asked around and played his cards right he would certainly meet her again. With any luck, she would measure up to his first impressions and they would hit it off magnificently. If not, there was always Bogart to fall back on with all his boasts of "nothing a few bourbons couldn't cure" and he could go back to his enviable singles life drinking the finest Margaux and Pomerol as he built up a network of financial influence so vast and impenetrable that not even the Pentagon could stop him.

He spent the next half hour surfing the internet, going through his usual circuit of financial pages and making a few minor transactions. AT & T was up, but Bell was down. It was a bad day for oil and gas, but a good day in general for other commodities. Industrials remained steady but internet stocks dipped sharply. There was even an e-mail about the new investment opportunity involving on-board pheromone sensors for mobile devices. When he was finished he shut down his tablet and pulled out his i-phone. He dialed slowly but before he heard the first ring a dark voice answered.

"Excellent timing," the Carrier said.

"Are you alone?"

"Yes."

"Shall I?" Gregory rebooted up his tablet and typed the code "Chimera2" into the login box and then watched as a stream of numbers rained across the screen.

"I'm ready."

"So am I."

"Six-eight-seven-seven-one-six-two-two-two-three-nine," the Carrier enunciated in a slow rhythmical cadence, as though reciting a morbid war poem.

There was a long silence on the other end. After some time Gregory thought he could hear the Carrier breathing. A sound like a cold wind at night was followed by the muted chatter of what seemed like a group of women talking several rooms away. And then there was total silence. All Gregory could hear was the sound of his own breathing reflected off the front panel of his i-phone.

"We will be in touch," the Carrier finally said.

"I'll be waiting," said Gregory.

He turned off his tablet and set it back on the desk. He had never met the Carrier and knew he never would. The Carrier was a person whose very essence was defined as "the one who cannot be met with". Who was he? Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous creator of Bitcoin? It was hard to say. Gregory didn't know that either. Every time he spoke to the Carrier, his voice was different. Sometimes he sounded like a woman. Sometimes he spoke like a scholar, other times like a Baptist minister, and still other times like a New Orleans dock worker. His accent could be Spanish, Italian, or none at all. Maybe it was some kind of voice scrambler, or maybe it was just The Carrier's innate ability to master all accents and voices. Maybe he had learned this skill from some expert ventriloquist, but it wasn't Gregory's place to know or pry. If you were into money laundering, then you had to accept the fact that it was easy to trace transactions person to person. You could trace e-mail; you could bug telephone conversations; you could even use shotgun mikes to listen in on conversations hundreds of yards away. But how could you trace a conversation with a ghost? A man that had no fixed number – every time he called the Carrier he was somewhere else and at a new number. Sometimes a number was slipped under his door in the dead of night. Sometimes he got a number in his e-mail from an address that could not be replied to, and just when he thought he would never hear from the Carrier again a man would approach him in a restaurant and whisper something in his ear. The number was always different and the Carrier was always different. Yet every time the Carrier gave him a new code, it always worked. There was no cash transfer that couldn't be hacked for a few tenths of a percent. No one ever noticed, and when the sum was large enough, as it often was, a gorgeous mass of money would be waiting the very next day in one of his offshore accounts. Find out where the big money was going and skim a little off the top. Santander did it, albeit legally, so why not him? They made ten percent of their annual revenues by manipulating exchange rates on international cash transfers. Intercepting such cash transfers was akin to Mexican bandits hitting a gold shipment in the old west, but there were no trains, no horses, certainly no guns, and nobody noticed the missing fraction of a percent. Just the internet and a few precious numbers. Every time the money came from somewhere else under a completely different name and for a completely different reason. The US air force thought that stealth came in the form of a colossal black wing flying over Iraq like a doomsday creature of the night, but Gregory knew of another kind of stealth that was far more dangerous and far more effective.

Gregory shut down his computer and poured himself a small dram of cognac. It was essential to the success of any business transaction to finish it off with a shot of only the finest flaming gold elixir money could buy. Without even a light sniff, he downed the glass in a single gulp, straightening his back and fanning out his chest like a triumphant bird of prey as wave upon wave of sweet burning Hari Krishna radiated out from the base of his throat to what seemed like every Chakra in his body. It wasn't even dark outside and the world was already exploding in some vast collective Nirvana.

### Chapter 2.7

A cab rounded the corner, nearly splashing Laura as it knifed through a small black puddle. She was standing next to a telephone pole in the East Village waiting for Halo, only this time there were no tinkling whiskey glasses or narcoleptic piano players to keep her company. As was already becoming a pattern between them, she had been waiting for over half an hour and was starting to wonder if she should just give up and go home. It was all about time, wasn't it? All about waiting. Laura was never one to think that life was too short. If anything, it was too long. Just like there were too many people in the world for her comfort, there were also too many years in a person's life. How many times did you have to do something before you knew you never wanted to do it again? How many times did you have to feel the sweating hulk of a man on top of you before you knew so well how it felt that imagining it was almost better than doing it? After all, if you had a sweating hulk of muscle heaving away on top of you, you could never imagine away his bad breath or the smell of cheap gel in his hair. At what point in life did you get so fed up with pleasure that your only choice was to raise children or devote yourself to the betterment of the world? How many nights had Zarathustra or Mohammed spent under the cool desert sky before they decided it was finally time to give it up and actually do something meaningful for the world? Maybe they had really turned to God out of boredom with the human condition. Maybe they had just gotten sick of liquor and women faster than everyone else and had just taken up religion out of some last ditch effort to generate some new form excitement, life's thin veil of sensual pleasure irreparably torn away. Did they really want to serve mankind, or just fill up their respective voids to make their last years a little more bearable?

A police car stopped across the street and a young officer, a rookie earnest expression pinned on his face, stepped out and started laying down a sequence of what Laura guessed were flares on the road. But there was no sign of and accident or road works anywhere. It was that kind of day. One of stasis and incongruity. While she never allowed herself to lose her foundations and get lost in idle speculation, for some reason today was different. She felt detached and uninspired, but also uneasy for allowing herself to feel this way. A strange combination of languor and anxiety came over her as she pressed her i-phone to her ear, pretending to be on a call so that nobody would come by and try to start up a conversation. She watched a man with a lion's mane afro cross the street. He was carrying a white cane and had a blue cape hanging like a towel from his forearm: an unusual combination, even for New York. He was alluring, but in a completely different way than Gregory, who she found handsome in a kind of effeminate but also roguish way, like an early Brian Jones with a bratty sneer that wouldn't have been out of place in a late nineteen sixties SoHo loft party. It was a trait that didn't come across in the "GQ" picture Halo had given her. She was no child of New York nightclubs like Studio 54, but she certainly knew sex appeal when she saw it. That was one thing she could always be counted on for: an eye for handsome men. But she also had a soft spot for salt-of-the-earth petty criminals like Mace. They were true individuals, like the outlaws of the old West, who made their own decisions and accepted the consequences, for better or worse. They were the only real people left. Was Gregory in this category or was he something altogether different and more sinister that deserved to be exposed and prosecuted? All she could say was that she didn't know. She looked deep into herself for the motive she required, or rather, the motive she must already have had all along to be waiting on Halo's lateness once again.

As she watched a plume of smoke rise from a distant factory in New Jersey she could see as she looked directly down 50th Street towards the Hudson River, a voice from beneath her feet told her what she needed to know. Money. That was the answer. It was money that kept Stork from loving her. It was money that plagued her day after day as she eked out her tiny little existence in New York. And it was money that pointed its corpulent gray finger at Mace and blamed him for stealing its wallet. Money. Maybe it was the sidewalk that had whispered it to her, but now she already knew what she didn't know just five minutes before. And that was progress.

Gregory made a life out of exploiting people like Mace. He was sitting back making loads of money with his financial shell games while real criminals who had to rob Seven Elevens to feed their children and make ends meet were taking the brunt of the punishment from the legal system. Gregory probably thought he was noble for screwing the government and international banks, but he was really just another capitalist trolling his fishing nets through oceans of rotten cash while small-time thieves desperately tried to harpoon whatever loose bills remained before they sank to the ocean floor. She rubbed a fallen lash out of her eye and carefully readjusted her belt. Like Zarathustra or Mohammed, she would rise from the sands of exile to forge ahead on her new mission. Gregory was defiling the name of honest thieves and outlaws alike and had to be brought to justice.

She shook her fist in the air in a private gesture of victory as though to punctuate her train of thought. When she turned around she saw Halo standing there as though he had been watching her from behind for several minutes. It was once again part of their pattern. He was wearing a beige Burberry raincoat and his face looked satisfied and refreshed, like that of a man stepping out of a hot shower.

"Did I frighten you?" he asked.

"No," she said. "Did I frighten you?" At least he could have tapped her on the shoulder before she had the chance to shake her fist in the air and embarrass herself.

"Do you frighten me is a better question."

"Why?"

"It depends on how committed you are. With women I find the greater the commitment the greater the threat. With men it is the opposite. Men are most dangerous when they rush in and rush out. Rapists. Suicide bombers. When men get committed they get lazy and complacent as though they have found themselves a little womb to burrow in. Men are soft on the inside, violent on the outside. They always want peace in the big picture, but can't seem to control the little picture..."

"And when they are from Britain, I hear they are also sexist."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. I meant to say that women were more dangerous in the long term because of their ability to control themselves and hide their true intentions. Men are too obvious, like sloppy dogs wagging their rain-soaked tails, drooling, and barking wherever they go. Frightening only until you pull out a dog biscuit and ask them to go fetch."

"So women are the evil temptresses that lure men into their webs while harboring all sorts of wicked plots and hidden agendas?" she tested him. "Warming the eggs of sin, I think a famous Japanese writer called it."

"Don't tease me with your stereotypes."

"Fine, but don't you get my point?"

"Which is?"

"Men don't know anything about women."

"Exactly. That's why we need you to help us."

"Speaking of which, do we have to stand here all night?"

"I'm sorry. How rude of me. On my way I passed a small hamburger stand. It's just around the corner."

"A hamburger stand? Couldn't find a bank to change your pounds? Let's go somewhere else. I can pay. There is a quiet lounge..."

"Quiet. Hmmm. I think that may not be to our advantage."

"Then I know a louder place. There's a good bar two blocks from here."

"A place where I'd no doubt look conspicuous."

"Then come back to my apartment. I have some wine left from last night."

"I don't have much to say. All we needed was some indication..."

"Of my commitment?"

"Yes. You're very clever, my dear."

She looked down at her shoes. They were black, her favorite color (even though it wasn't a color), and still shiny even though she hadn't polished them since she had bought them a few months earlier. She wondered if he had noticed them and what, if anything, they told him about her character. Was she devoted or was she a potential traitor? Could she be trusted? Did she even know these answers? Or, did Halo already know what she would say and do and was just playing with her own lack of self-knowledge?

"Yes," she said boldly. "I'm not afraid."

"Believe me, you will be paid handsomely."

"Yes," she repeated. "I..." She wanted to tell him a second time she wasn't really in it for the money, but she swallowed once and stopped. She would take whatever money he gave her. That way she would be getting money to destroy _money_. The ultimate revenge on Stork.

"No need to explain or justify. I knew you were special when I met you. Gregory is a very dangerous person. But fortunately we know a few things. We know, for example, that he has some information that would immediately incriminate him if we found it and we also know that you can help us get it."

"Just tell me. Keep it simple. Tell me what you want me to do. Step by step. Just remember I'm not a trained spy. I'm not a prostitute either. This is just a one-time thing. I don't get along with cops of any kind, so the last thing I want is to end up turning into _one of them_."

"I understand," he said with a soft depth in his eyes. A dog waddled up to him and sniffed his knee, its tail wagging back and forth in earnest. It looked up at him and suddenly yelped as though it recognized him from some previous beating and then ran across the street, just barely avoiding a cab speeding through the intersection.

"Beneath your sensuality I can see that you are a strong, even hard woman. But beneath that hardness, I can also see that you are kind and loving. Tenderness hiding hardness hiding tenderness."

"What are you getting at?"

"It is far too difficult to extract the kind of information we need without the deceptive comforts of personal intimacy. But I will leave that to your discretion."

Laura's expression became more relaxed. "I'm sorry if I raised my voice. I'm nervous. I've never had to do something like this. Not that I don't want to. It's just that..."

"You don't want to feel used. You want to feel that this is for you and because of you and that when we achieve victory it will also be your victory. I can tell you are an independent minded woman, and that's why we need you. It is only through your independence that we will get what we want."

Halo looked at his watch and then bit into his lip in a way that made him look suddenly awkward, like a person whose life was destroyed by an unjust lawsuit. It made her feel safer to see him that way. It somehow made him more human.

"I will be in touch with more specific details. I have to go back to my hotel. My flight back to London leaves tomorrow."

Laura didn't say anything. She just nodded her head as she watched him walk down the street and melt into the shadows, his coat almost seeming to stretch out and grow into the wings of a stealth bomber, moving with graceful grim determination through the deep intrepid night, an agent of tranquility as much as destruction. A feeling of weakness spread through her torso. Yet it was one of pleasurable vulnerability, like when she was first in love with Johnny Enzyme. To go through life always being in control was nothing but a barren and worthless existence. That's what the power mongers had never figured out. It was only in her greatest moments of weakness that she felt most alive.

The blue light of a police car spilled over her shoes and she looked up. A police van parked across the street beside the line of flares and seemed to be waiting for someone. Weren't we all waiting for someone? Was she still waiting, or had she already met that person? In the darkness the lights of the street flowed like liquid around the buildings, falling into gullies, swirling into eddies, and sparkling like spirits from another realm. Her soul was an ill-fated triangle, with Halo, Mace, and Gregory pulling at each apex and Stork and Johnny Enzyme cheering or jeering on the sidelines. Which one of them would win? Or, would she beat them all and come out clean? Something inside her said nobody would win and the only outcome would be her destruction. But didn't everyone secretly long for annihilation? She was _the first woman of the twenty first century_ and all she had to show for it were the final symptoms of a long slow death. Time was slipping away from her with dizzying speed. Last she heard, Star was off on Vancouver Island raising five kids with a washing machine salesman who grew hydroponic marijuana on the side. As for Tünde, they hadn't spoken since she went back to Germany a week after her graduation. For all she knew they had grown into completely different people with absolutely nothing in common and there wasn't a meaningful word that could be spoken between them. Maybe it would have been better if they all had died that day with Johnny Enzyme, when they were still at their blazing apogee. Laura, Tünde, Star, and Johnny, all mangled and dead in a spectacular car crash like James Dean or Mark Bolan. Yes, that was it. Now she was finally certain. Every last one of us was secretly waiting for Shiva to do her exquisite dance of destruction while we painlessly drank our breakfast tea and checked our morning e-mail. Marlene Dietrich was right. Life, indeed was more frightening than death.

She heard the slam of a car door and closed her eyes. When she opened them the police cars were gone complete with the flares and the street was virtually empty. Her knees felt cold as she turned around and started walking home. It seemed very far away, almost too far to go by foot. As she listened to the sounds of the sleeping city she wondered if she really came this way as often as she did, and if so, why she always chose to walk. Maybe the pavement had been whispering to her all along but life had made her too deaf to hear.

## BOOK 3

### Chapter 3.1

Beauty, truth, beauty, truth, beauty, and truth: these were the six things that frightened Gregory the most. Forget about Keats and Shelly. Forget about Aristotle and Kant. What did they know? They spent most of their lives sulking in cold dark cellars while the rest of the world was out trying to get laid. They were more interested in studying the moss on their bedroom walls than they were in the eternal quest for flowers, blood, and perfume: the first three signs of beauty and destruction. Beauty was terrible. Perhaps this was what the philosophers knew but never told you. It made you sick. It made you ugly. It made you feel like nothing and made you perfectly happy to feel like nothing. Forget what _Vogue_ had to say on the subject, beauty was really about scourges, damnation, and the eternal night of the soul. Sure, it had its cheery sunlit afternoons replete with lavender and lace spent sipping rosé in quaint backyard gazebos, but that was all just a false front, its unsuspecting victims pining away in unlit basements like prisoners of some ruthless new drug lord awaiting execution.

Whenever Gregory was confused about his love life, he sought the company of an ex-girlfriend or former lover. It was only with an old flame that you could speak out your mind without fear of criticism. In the streets of New York you had to be careful. You couldn't wear your heart on your sleeve. You couldn't tell just anybody. New York was a war zone of the spirit, a war zone of the soul. Telling a woman you hadn't yet slept with about a second woman you wanted to sleep with was the most grievous of errors. She might smile and commend you on your discretion, praising you for not being like "all the other men" because you showed signs of true feelings and romantic devotion. But in the deepest corners of her imagination she would puff out her cheeks and spit venom in your eyes because it wasn't she that had you all smitten and bent out of shape. And even if she wasn't the slightest bit attracted to you, going so far as making a point of saying so, you were _never_ supposed to tell her that you desired anyone but her. It was a woman's divine right to turn you down just as much as it was her divine right to spite you for not trying. But sadly, men were no better. Even with Gregory's closest male friends there was always a sense of hidden competition. When men were in groups they displayed the slavish loyalty of well-trained firedogs. Men cherished an unwritten code of honor and good sportsmanship. But that was only on the surface. Deep down inside they always wished for the demise of their comrades. They wanted to have all the most beautiful women to themselves. If they couldn't have their best friend's wife or lover they secretly hoped the relationship would sour so they could swoop in and pick up the leftovers, even if they weren't attracted to her in the first place. Men were just as jealous as anyone else, but didn't like to admit it. They wanted everyone to think that they were strong and pure, the next in a long line of righteous Abrahams to step up to the throne and become the ultimate patriarch and provider. But at the end of the day men just couldn't cut it. They were just as jealous as women once you stripped away the onionskin layers of their faux-chummy platitudes.

So that left ex-girl friends and lovers, the ones you had done all the right things to at all the wrong times. But once it was over they were always hard to find, assuming they would even want to talk to you if you managed to hunt them down in the first place. When they got involved with someone else they dropped off your radar screen. And if you tried to call them there was always the chance their new boyfriend would answer the phone. _How much does he know about me? It seems as though he likes me, but how could he, given all the bad things she must have said about me?_ were common questions that rattled through your head while you waited for whatever Joe Blow it was to pass the phone on to your ex, who might very well be standing there naked beside him. Only when your ex was single but had no desire to ever date you again could you count on her for advice. And when she truly had no hope of gaining anything from you again, when she had gone from loving you to hating you to not caring one bit, only then could she be trusted. In this respect, ex-girl friends constituted a third sex. They didn't compete with you like other men and they didn't want something from you like women you hadn't yet slept with. That's why there were girls like Benny, girls you once loved, but never could again. Once you paid the Mafia a protection fee they left you alone. And likewise, once you slept with a particular woman you always knew you had their loyalty and could (eventually) rely on her for advice some time down the road when the chips were down.

Gregory rubbed his forehead and looked at his alarm clock. When his vision locked into place, the blurry red ball a few feet from his head crystallized into an LED array of numbers, which then crystallized into a concept. It was time to get up and face his demons. No matter how bad his hangover was, once Benny came over everything would be better. Benny always made him feel better.

It took a while, but Benny eventually came over. At last she came over, thank God she came over. It took a long torturous morning watching _Youtube_ videos from a controversial new Chinese rapper who was said to be planning his first world tour as a hologram broadcast from his secret recording studio. After that he wandered up and down Broadway taking an aspirin every half hour to make his headache go away. Why had only five glasses of gin at the local insomniac's lounge caused him such anguish? Had it been laced? The tall buildings of Manhattan swung to-and-fro like deadly pendulums. New York was a scary place at the best of times, and even worse for anybody in such a condition.

When he returned to his apartment building Benny was there waiting. She was leaning on her white Audi TT playing with her keys as though they were a part of some secret Buddhist puzzle, smiling with the look of a hunger project nurse: a person of infinite compassion and patience. It was a look that he always craved for in strangers on the street when he was alone and missing her, yet also a look that never failed to make him feel distant from her when they were together. How was it possible to get close to anyone with such an expression of such bottomless good will? In spite of this she was always able to surprise him: she was devastation in bed, pure and total devastation. All the virtue in her face would at once vanish and suddenly reemerge in a different form, transmogrified into an intoxicating mask of carnal need.

"Did anyone ever tell you to show up on time?" she asked. She had a Nebraska accent smoothed around the corners by several years abroad in places like South Korea and Tibet. Gregory wondered if Asian men lapped up her Beata Beatrice looks as much as men did here. The Kung Fu fuck and Ming Ho slam (hold the noodles), were they a part of _her_ collection?

"I'm sorry," he said. "I had to do an aspirin run."

"Still running around late at night without an umbrella? Tisk tisk." She scolded him with her index finger and pulled up the sleeve of her powder blue cardigan. As usual she was immaculately dressed. She had always been an intellectual in clothing. Everyone knew about women and their unrivalled expertise in clothing, but Benny was one of the few women that really _knew_ clothing. She could tell Valentino from Vuitton with oven mitts and a blindfold. "This blouse has good stitching, that one doesn't," was a common statement whenever they went shopping together. She would toss the garment with poor stitching back on the rack as if it were an oil rag in an auto garage. With finely tailored clothes, she would hold them up a few inches from her eyes and examine them like a jeweler appraising a Swiss watch. She was even paid one-hundred-thousand dollars by a wealthy Monaco collector for spotting a Vivian Westwood fake at an auction before he pitched his final bid.

"It was some bad gin." He let his head sink. "Or something like that."

"You should change your ways. I worry about you sometimes." She smiled with affectionate sarcasm. "I do, really."

They went up to his apartment. Benny sank into the leopard skin beanbag chair in the living room. "Like I said. You should change your ways."

"You're not helping me," he said. He felt faint. "Just because your parents named you after an Elton John song doesn't mean you have free reign to poke fun at me."

"You're just lucky I don't send the "Jets" over. Or Candy and Ronnie, for that matter." When they first met she kidded him that her parents also named her two sisters and all three of their dogs after Elton John songs. He believed her until she told him otherwise, right after the first time they had sex. How could he not with her lace-like blonde rivulets and blue diamond eyes: the perfect confluence of sexuality and innocence every man longs for in a woman?

"Well, maybe I am." He threw a small throw pillow at her and she deflected it towards of one of his wall-sized canvasses, a Jackson Pollock forgery he had bought full knowing its dubious origins, but deciding that it looked as good as, if not better, than any Pollock and was one tenth the price. The joke was really on the art world. "But that doesn't mean you shouldn't help me."

He wondered what it was like inside her unearthly azure linen skirt that very moment – the texture, the scent, the warmth or lack thereof - but his mind stopped short when the image of her smiling in a nun's outfit entered his mind. She had never entered the convent but admitted a few months after they started dating that she had always longed to. After that he could never make love to her in the same way. There was always an element inside him of holding back as though he was secretly afraid to defile or corrupt her. Or was it the fear that God was watching him on his great big porno screen taking notes for his final judgment? Even though he knew she would never really become a nun and was probably every bit as bad as he was deep inside, something went wrong in their personal media exchange and after that he was never able to vanquish the image in his head of her dressed as _The Flying Nun_ bowing down to some frumpy Mother Superior.

"I just have one piece of advice," she said. "Never chase a woman. Wait until she comes to your door. Of course, you have to take the first step and introduce yourself, which I gather you have, but then it is up to her - especially if you gave her your card. That's what I always believed. If this woman seemed interested in you, and then just vanished from the horizon without explanation, I would say that she will probably be back, but has some private business to clear up first."

"Such as?"

"Maybe she has a boy friend she is not satisfied with but hasn't done anything about it yet. Maybe she is busy working on a big project that demands complete attention and she was afraid your 'wonderful' presence in her life so suddenly would interfere with that work."

"If my presence is so 'wonderful' then why aren't we still together?" he asked with an irresponsible grin.

"Because you kept cheating on me."

Gregory forced a look of innocence. "And all along I thought it was because you always used to pull your acts of virtue on me."

"Acts of virtue?"

"That's exactly what I mean. Always playing blind and innocent. You're the type of woman every man secretly labels "a virtue bitch". Everything you do is pure and noble. Do you know how hard that is for a man to live up to?"

"Then you just answered your own question," she snapped smartly.

"It wasn't that I ever missed you," he said. "Besides, it seems so long ago."

"And Nancy wore green stockings, I suppose?"

"Indeed she did. But I banned Leonard Cohen from my apartment a long time ago." It was after a party where a bunch of hippie intellectuals from NYU took over his stereo and played Leonard Cohen all night while they took turns making out with Gregory's date – an art student from Norway - on the living room floor.

Outside the evening had already transformed into night, and a dark and monstrous night at that. The rain was coming down in walls and waves, slamming into the window and breaking apart into a thousand icy pieces before tumbling onward to the pavement below. Gregory felt weak and vulnerable. It was always woman that spelled the end of whatever he had hoped to accomplish, yet it was always at his word and only at his word that they had delivered their final blow.

"So I should just wait," he said, trawling for her approval.

"If you wait, you will see her again. If that is what you really want."

"And if I try to find her?" He thought of going back to the Gagosian every day for a month until she showed up.

"Then maybe you will forget about her. Isn't that the eternal danger to love? Isn't that why people hang on so long when they know that it's not working out anyway? They're afraid that walking away will eventually dry up whatever precious feelings they once had for someone and then the relationship will be over for good. But it's counter-productive, as walking away is what brings them back! Those feelings you men keep so close to your hearts as you weep away at your desks and compose your romantic pleas. Even when you know she won't take you back, you keep writing them anyway. It's almost as if the act of being rejected and the subsequent narcissistic wallowing is enough to justify the cause. Especially when both parties know it's utterly hopeless."

"And you women? What do you do? Walk around sucking blood out of everyone like vampires while pretending to be virginal." Gregory paused as though he was assailed by a sudden and unexpectedly joyous realization. "It's actually quite a turn on, when you think about it." Gregory took a pair of socks and tossed them in the air, watching them fall in the middle of the floor a few feet away from Benny. "Quite stunning. A pair of daisy white breasts bouncing like bunny rabbits in the sun."

That was the other thing. One thing you could always count on an ex-girl friend for. You could always be crude. It wasn't that Gregory was callous by nature. It was just that he felt he owed it to her for all those months he spent with her censoring whatever he was about to say out of fear he might offend her and she ended up putting him in her doghouse. But the irony was that everyone knew that women had nastier mouths than men. Look in any woman's restroom. Look in any convent. Some theorists held that woman were genetically programmed to act pure and virginal so as to attract men who secretly wanted to find their mothers, but Gregory knew that underneath it all women were also genetically programmed to be far less squeamish than men and thus be able to withstand much greater vulgarities. Maybe it had to do with being a good mother. You had to act pure while also being able to cope with dirty diapers and baby vomit.

"If you are trying to offend me, it won't work," she said.

"No. Just a thought."

"You just can't keep your mind off her, can you?"

"No. It wasn't 'her' that I was thinking about. Is that how little you know? When a guy is taken by a woman it is always much harder for him to think of her in terms of object oriented sex. It's only women we don't know or would never get involved with that we like to think about while masturbating."

"Thanks for sharing that with me," she said sarcastically. "With dashing conversation topics like this you're bound to make a strong impression."

"Don't worry, I know how to handle myself," Gregory countered. But then he felt nervous and uncomfortable. The prospect of having Laura, hiding behind her dark robe of mystic perfume and leagues of rich dense hair, show up on his doorstep suddenly seemed far-fetched and even ridiculous. "The bloody moon would have a greater chance of showing up at my door," he admitted dejectedly. "Let's talk about something else."

"If you insist. How about your hobbies..."

"I have none. Except for dining and wine. But that's more socializing than a hobby. What good is a bottle of Petrus if you are just staying at home watching TV?" His head froze in mid-motion. "Now that I think of it, I could think of a lot of things to do with a bottle of Petrus. Drink it. That's one option..."

Benny laughed with a light sniffle through her nose. "OK. What about your family? How is your brother?"

"I haven't seen him in two years."

"What about..."

"What about you? Enough about me." Gregory stood up sharply. His hand was jittering. "I always feel selfish when I talk about myself."

"My, haven't we changed." She put emphasis on "we" so as to imply she really meant 'him'.

"Maybe I have. But that's turning the conversation back to me. Tell me about your new boyfriend. How does he fuck?" An impudent grin spread across his face.

"Gregory!" she said sharply. She glowered at him until her frown eased into a neutral expression. "Maybe you haven't changed after all..."

"That's about me, again. You're just sitting in front of me like some kind of Baptist nurse cleansing the world of all its evils. You must have some problem hidden away under that pretty face of yours. Come on. Your new boyfriend beats you. You hate your job. You love your job too much and have no spare time. You have too much spare time and you're bored all the time. You don't get enough sex. You get too much sex. You get just the right amount of sex and in its just-rightness it has ceased to present a challenge and you're frustrated as a result..."

"You really are a clown, aren't you?"

"Maybe." Gregory sucked in his chest and turned his gaze to the clock on the wall. The slow passing of time was suddenly more tangible, more painful. Laura had not stopped by yet. Although it had only been minutes since Benny's last piece of advice, nothing had yet transpired to change his fortunes with Laura. It seemed like hours had passed since Benny had made her prediction, and now it was looking more and more like a platitude. "Maybe. But maybe _we_ should fuck. Maybe that would fix things."

"Gregory!" She had an angry glint in her eyes. It was the same look she had when she told him she didn't want to see him anymore. "I think I should go." She picked up her keys and stood up sharply. "Yes. That would be a very good idea, wouldn't it?"

Gregory felt silly and helpless. It was just a casual suggestion, but obviously not a good one. He stood in complete silence as she threw an arid smile in his direction and marched out the door. Without turning to watch her leave, he heard the door shut in a gentle almost imperceptible way. Only a woman like Benny could have made such an understated exit after throwing up such a wall of antipathy. As he sat on the couch he felt glad that he had once been involved with such a graceful and powerful woman. He was a blessed man, indeed.

### Chapter 3.2

Halo plucked a hot chip from the oily paper bouquet in his hand and savored the sharp scent of vinegar rising to his nose. It was well past midnight and the streets glistened in all their damaged glory under the pale fallout of the moon. London was once again undone. The world was once again undone. The City always lost its way at night and began to unravel around Old Street tube station. Like any metaphysical system, the night had its own set of laws and transcendental dictates. Halo focused his gaze on a bright red point of light hovering above the London skyline. Suddenly it vanished and the streets echoed with a loud percussive bang as though a garbage dumpster had just been tipped over in a nearby street.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes," he heard the frantic mumbling of a deep male voice from behind a wall of fog. It had its own form of chaos and its own form of order. From a distance night always looked the same. It was always black. Opaque. Impenetrable. But up close one could see so many hidden facets, textures, and nuances. It all came down to the human mind. Modern physics said reality only appeared to be three-dimensional because our brains had evolved to perceive it that way. A rope had three dimensions. It was thick and heavy and had a tangible sense of width. When you tied a noose it was strong enough to snap the bones in a man's neck. But when you viewed a rope from far away it looked so thin it was only a line, a delicate strand of angel hair, a string of dimensionless points lined up to give the illusion of a single dimension. Like gold to airy thinness beat. And that was what night was like. Black, dense, and apparently illusory, but only from a distance. A wall of nothingness concealing behind it a vast somethingness. The day was just the opposite. It looked like something of great complexity and importance from a distance, but when you viewed it up close it was nothing. It lost all sense of form and structure, collapsing like a circus tent in a hurricane. People had their jobs. People ate their food. People read their stock reports, petted their dogs, set their egg timers, visited the sick, went to school, pursued their dreams, fought their enemies, and prayed to their gods. The day was glib, even strident, a dizzying series of tangles and knots on a rope that ultimately lacked any purpose. It was a meaningless bundle of _sound and fury_.

Halo continued down the street and turned into a dark alley where the lack of light was even more noticeable than the myriad shapes of lesser darknesses around it. Night was always able to do that to him. When it was dark there was always something darker. Night had so many hidden angles and vertices. He once read that the universe was always expanding, but that there was nothing beyond the universe for it to expand into. There was only the universe, and it was always getting bigger. It was only a paradox when you didn't look closely enough at darkness and the infinity of dimensions it contained. The fact that black holes could collapse thirteen billion years ago on the fringes of the universe and send out waves in reality that distorted London's roads by thousandth of the width of a proton was nowhere near as fascinating as the halcyon secrets of the fathomless night.

He heard the ruffling of a bird's wings and suddenly he sensed the presence of another. It wasn't a sound or a feeling of warmth. It was a feeling of invasion. He took a step forward and then he heard some mumbling. It seemed to be coming from about block away. A person in conversation with someone else, someone even more silent. The voice was so obscured by its own echoes that the individual words were no longer discernable. An endless strand of dummy DNA with no meaningful code to do it justice in the world. Then he heard a second voice. It was closer. In the alley right in front of him. It was the invader speaking.

"You are on time," the voice said.

"Where are you?" Halo asked.

"It would be imprudent to reveal my location."

"Where should I leave the package?"

"Then everything is in order? I'm so glad that everything is in order."

"Have I ever let you down?"

"There is always a first time. Just as every man has one great death in their life to eclipse all his little deaths, he also has one great moment of betrayal. Soon will come a time when everyone is Judas."

"I am not Judas."

"Then leave the package exactly where you are standing and then turn and walk away."

Halo took the small package out of his coat pocket. Inside was a tape. He had wrapped it himself earlier that day. On the tape were things he had not heard and was not meant to hear. According to the source, it was supposed to have been recorded in Russian, but even of that he wasn't sure. He wondered if the voice facing him in the darkness was authorized to listen to it or if he would just pass it on to someone else who was.

"I will set it down in front of me," he said. The thought occurred to him that the tape was a complete blank only used as a decoy. But even blankness was a code. Even blankness was a language. Blankness, above all else, was a language. Blankness concealed far more information than any language. It was an empty DVD waiting to be burned. Blankness was the first and only infinity. Once you introduced lines on a white canvas, you automatically set up constraints and limitations.

Halo tightened his hand around the box, admiring for a moment how symmetrically he had wrapped it. In the faint light it could be taken for the best of Christmas presents. The very best. He bent down to set it on the ground in front of him but the street level was lower than he anticipated so he decided to drop the tape the last few centimeters rather than risk bending his back any further. From the sound of impact he guessed it hit something made of metal.

"You should be more careful. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link," the voice recited mechanically. Then there was silence.

Halo stepped back and turned away from the voice. Then he walked slowly away. Soon he could see the outline of a train station he didn't noticed on his way to drop off the package. That's what Halo liked most about London. It was like the night. He lived for its folds and nooks, its hidden enclaves. So many secret corners, each with its special feeling, its own smell, and its own story. London was a city of places, some perhaps no bigger than a few inches or feet in diameter, places like the alley he had just been in, places that when woven together into a greater whole, somehow became a city. And each place was a piece of temporal yarn that led you back on a zigzag trail to some obscure fragment from its disjoint past. This brick ultimately leads us to Jack the Ripper. That brick points back to the Battle of Britain. It was a kaleidoscope of coincidental associations. New York was different. New York was the twentieth century and nothing more. It was like Athens, a city that could only symbolize what it was at its apogee and because of this would forever be frozen in time. For sure, New York existed before the twentieth century, but it wasn't New York then. Or rather, it was, but had not yet become what it was destined to be. And in the twenty first century and beyond it would only be the shadow of New York as it was in the twentieth century – a city where people lost jobs during the Great Depression and were forced to walk down the streets with signs on their back looking for work – and nothing more. Soon it would freeze in history with its legacy of Harlem riots and countless Yankee World Championships.

Halo walked down a street as the sun was just beginning to appear on the horizon. He was somewhere near Crystal Palace. He knew this because of the antenna reaching upwards from the hill in the distance. Was the hill called Gipsy Hill? In all his years in London he had never figured this out. The neighborhood certainly had this name, and it was the only hill he knew of between Crystal Palace and Stockton. Would he ever find out? Perhaps that was the greatest joy of London. To always wonder where you were and why it was called what it was. A bird called in the distance and he marveled at how much it had changed since he first knew it as a young man back in the nineteen fifties – a decade he had always felt close to. For Halo time had frozen in those days before he left Crouch End and went off to the military academy. He was a quiet and solitary young man, riddled with intellectual curiosity, but determined to serve his country. He could have been an engineer, a scientist, or even a historian - he certainly had the passion and the mind for it. His A-levels stood as timeless proof of this. Yet entering the world of the intellect meant betraying the principals of the state. Ideas could be dangerous, ideas could be contradictory. Unbridled abstract thought was amoral and therefore a threat to the security of the Commonwealth. But after four years of foreign service in the military he came to realize that it was important to support the prosperity of all states and all peoples, and not just those of the ailing and biased British Empire. It was wrong to keep his political and philosophical musings to himself just so England could have the luxury of oppressing weaker nations with impunity. His superiors in the army were ideologues, hypocrites, or bureaucrats with no more devotion to the British cause than the average beggar on the street. The foreign soldiers, spies, and mercenaries he met while serving in countries like Bosnia and Kuwait had more depth and substance than any of the men who shouted out empty orders as they led the Royal salute in the cold dawn of military camp.

Halo rounded a corner lined with tall overhanging bushes. A group of three young men crossed the street and approached him.

"Tell us the way to Hammersmith," demanded the tallest one. His hair was shaved to his skull and he smelled of beer. From his Arsenal shirt was clearly a football supporter.

"It's quite far," Halo said.

"Then how about the bloody London Bridge?" asked the second man. He was shorter than the other two and held a small radio in his hand. The third stood there grinning inimically as though he were the cog in the wheel of some great apocalypse waiting to unleash a heinous blight on the world.

"London Bridge isn't anywhere near Hammersmith," said Halo. Then he broke out into a chummy East End laugh, the kind of laugh he had seen countless times shared amongst fat balding men sitting in pubs watching football matches. It was a laugh he had studied and perfected, a tool that had never failed him when he called upon it in times of need. They were looking for a fight and wouldn't hesitate to roll an unarmed man.

"What's so bleedin' funny?" asked the first man.

"Oh, it's just a joke I heard. I couldn't help but think about it when you approached. It's about a fat old man walking alone who comes upon three..."

"I think I've heard that one," the second man said. Halo laughed again. It seemed to calm the third man, who suddenly looked at Halo more compassionately, as though confronting a distant relative.

"You seem to know your way around then. You must be a Londoner."

"Leeds," said Halo. He read the man's accent and knew exactly what the right answer was.

"We're from Leeds. You must have lived here a while, then. You sound like a Londoner. Where in Leeds are you from, then?"

"The North end."

The third man seemed satisfied with Halo's answer and looked quickly over at the second man. They nodded as if to signal it was time to move on. Then the first man calmly reached into Halo's coat pocket, as if to remind him that they were not through with him quite yet and could rob him on a whim, and pulled out a small piece of paper. He held it up in the light of an overhanging street lamp and read it out loud. "Laura Chain. Six hundred and fifty three AK-47s. Rue Florentine, Brussels." He looked at Halo and sneered. "What kind of Frenchy wank is this?"

Halo calmly took the paper back from the man. The other two had already turned and were starting to walk away.

"He's just some lonely old queen. Probably been out rogering little boys," said the second man, now about twenty feet away. "I think we should just move on."

Halo put the piece of paper back in his pocket and continued walking. Such encounters were common in London. By the time he had reached the end of the street his mind had already moved on to other things. Things like music. While Halo adored the nineteen-fifties for its Cold War politics, its clean polished cars, he also loved its soft and innocent songs, heartwarming ballads like _Tammy_ by Livingston and Evans. It never failed to break through his hard stalwart exterior. Who was Tammy? Would he ever meet her? Why did she seem so special to whoever it was in the storyline of the song that loved her? Whenever he heard it on the radio or at home on some television ad, he shivered inside. He desperately craved her nearness; he needed the clean blue of her eyes, and the soft affirmation of her skin. It was only songs like these that made Halo feel human again and rescued him from his official life as a ferret of the London underworld, wriggling through that maddening labyrinth of white stone and brick he had always loved but equally longed to escape from.

It was now day. The sun's rays poured into the world like a floodlight on the set of a bad soap opera. Halo walked on for over an hour until he reached his street in Balham. It was a neighborhood famous for its run down Tandoori houses, run down parks, and run down people. Halo shined like a new light bulb in an empty room amidst its rank squalor. He turned into the small lane that led up to the front door of his apartment complex. Three children were kicking a soccer ball against the wall, taking turns to see who could kick it the hardest. There was a broken baby carriage on the lawn. The children eyed him suspiciously and then retreated into a small huddle. Halo took out his keys and opened the door. He walked up the narrow staircase to a set of doors at the top. The smell of wet dust filled his lungs. He knocked at the door and a woman wearing an apron answered. He walked past her and hung up his coat and umbrella. Time was passing. He felt old and useless for the first time in years. It was a feeling that used to accost him in his late twenties when it suddenly seemed that barren responsibility had taken the place of all pleasure in life. Growing up wasn't about assuming responsibilities, it was about not letting them kill you.

"I left some eggs Benedict in the fridge for you, dear," she said. "I've got to go to the shops and pick up a few things."

"Thank you," Halo said. "You know how much I like your eggs Benedict."

Halo met Lilly in the nineteen eighties while everyone else was wearing black raincoats and worrying about the Cold War. She worked at a library in Stockwell and after two dates he proposed to her. It wasn't love at first sight, but she provided him with a certain sense of comfort and legitimacy he had never experienced before. Maybe she was his "Tammy" after all, and he had not yet realized it, or maybe she was just the sort of person he needed to keep his life in a state of apparent normality. After all these years he had never figured it out. Deep inside he hoped she was both, but he was never quite sure she made him feel the same way his imaginary Tammy always did. It was always hard for him to tell how he felt about anything that was close to him. When you missed someone was it just because the routine had been broken and you were having a difficult time adapting? Whatever the case, he was proud of his longstanding marriage and in his mind would always be devoted to Lilly.

Halo took his shoes off and opened the refrigerator. It had been a long night and he was starting to feel weak and hungry. For a moment the world became little more than the food shelved neatly on the cool racks in front of him. It was a peaceful world full of warmth and comfort, the kind of world he was always glad to come home to.

### Chapter 3.3

"Was this really war time?" Laura asked herself as she rummaged through her closet for a pair of shiny black boots she had once borrowed from Star for a Halloween party but never returned. How was putting on her best Marlene Dietrich face and dressing to the nines to get a man arrested any different than aiming a sniper rifle from a building top or throwing a grenade into a trench on some distant battlefront? Her commando regalia was one of satin and lace, completely devoid of holsters, badges or war ribbons, emblematic of the dark and timeless night. She could still remember the day Star leant her the boots. It was a time in Laura's life when she was at her most rebellious, hardened, and perhaps even meanest, yet ironically it was also a period when she had more friends than at any other time in her life. Since it was not long after she had first started seeing Johnny Enzyme, she was also at her most vulnerable. Maybe mean people were always the most vulnerable. Maybe that was why they were mean in the first place. It was just a matter of self-preservation. She went out with Star after the Halloween party and ended up starting a fight at an all night café with an unemployed gay-bashing logger who took exception to the fact that Star was dressed as a male trucker. Just as the sound of a police siren pierced the air, Laura threw a chair at the man and darted away with Star through the kitchen towards the back entrance. A few yards from the door Star tripped over a stool and spilled hot oil on her arm. Laura could still remember the silent grimace on Star's face as they ran into the back alley before the police even knew they had left the café. Shortly thereafter Johnny Enzyme flew to Jamaica and after that her life was never quite the same. Those wild and delicate weeks before he left were the best times in her life. Times she was sure she would never see the likes of again. Back then the world seemed so pure and good that all she wanted to do was wreck all that was pure and good about it. And now that she was older she only wished that somehow the world could go back to being pure and good again. Now that she was old enough to appreciate it without wanting to destroy it. But it never did. Life was always like that. It dealt you aces you had no use for until long after you'd thrown them away.

Laura pulled the boots out of the closet. They smelled like old leather and shoe polish, much like she would expect from any old boot, yet they also emanated a much subtler scent. At first she couldn't place it, but then it came to her. It was the soft and slightly damp smell of sex. She lifted one of the boots to her nose and inhaled at the heel. It was unmistakable. The smell of sheets in the morning. The smell of streets at night. The very essence. They were just the boots for Gregory. She always had a sense for men and what they liked and didn't like. She could tell if a man liked black or white lingerie in a matter of minutes after meeting him. She knew just by looking into his eyes if he liked long flowing dresses or tight bucket skirts, short sleeves or long, autumn tones or pastels. Life or death. Mace was life. He only looked like death. It was the people who acted like they liked life that really craved death. People who leapt around in antiperspirant ads with bright teeth and tennis rackets. They were the ones who longed for death the most. That's why they looked so happy. Just like people always felt a great sense of relief the day before their suicide, people who smiled and pretended to love life were only so happy because they knew their death was near.

That very morning her death had come to her in a small package. Or was it her life? Her second life. It was hard to tell, as was everything in her life, or her death for that matter. A slim elegant envelope inside of which was a small square of pink paper with one word on it: _Constantinople_. She wasn't sure, but guessed it was a meeting place – possibly a bar or restaurant. But there was more. There were some numbers. Three to be exact. They were dates - today's in fact - and a time. She figured it out in a flash. It was a message from Halo. But, there was even more. There was money. More than she had ever seen in one place. Twenty thousand dollars in large bills. If only Stork could see her now. If only he had the courage to. She called the operator immediately.

"Can you give me the number of Constantinople?"

"Is that a business, ma'am?"

"Yes. I think." If it wasn't then it was probably a secret message that she would have to decode. She held her breath as she waited for the operator's response.

"Do you have a pen," the operator said after a surprisingly short wait. "I found a listing for a Constantinople." She gave Laura the number and she wrote it down on the pink piece of paper. Whatever it was she was supposed to be there. But there was no time. There was only a date. Today. She called the number immediately. "Constantinople is now taking reservations," a recorded male voice spoke on the answering service. Byzantium. Always fucking Byzantium. The rest was academic.

Later that afternoon she went to the used bookstore around the corner from her apartment and bought a small paperback on the history of the Byzantine Empire. Although the word had plagued her for the past several weeks she knew very little about the subject. And was it just a coincidence that she was going to a restaurant called Constantinople or had Halo somehow read her mind? Perhaps now was as good a time as any to find out. She flipped through the book in her bedroom as she waited for the afternoon to fade into evening. Constantine, it said, was the first to establish the peace of the church in the fourth century AD. About two hundred years later Justinian, who some believed was its greatest emperor, built Hagia Sophia, a massive church in Constantinople - or what is today called Istanbul - that enchanted the worshipping populace with its towering mosaics and vast yawning spaces. The next three hundred years of prosperity saw the founding of great libraries and the flowering of the Eastern Orthodox faith, spreading as far north as what is today Russia. Towards the end of the seventh century the empire lost direction and a period known as iconoclasm emerged. Under the orders of the church icons of any kind, no matter how precious, were deemed unholy and collected from places as far north as Georgia to be burned. At the beginning of the second millennium the Turks invaded from the East and the mosaics in Hagia Sophia were destroyed and replaced by abstract Islamic wall murals. Ironically, they used the great structure as a blueprint for the Blue Mosque, down to the finest details of the floor plan, when they built it a hundred years later. Since then Turkey has been under Islamic rule, although the twentieth century saw a period of secularization. However, with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East, these secular attitudes were gradually eroded and Turkey became increasingly isolated from the rest of Europe. But in the last few years the country seemed to have swung away from radical Islam when it made overtures to build social economic bridges with Europe and Russia in an effort to catch up to the west.

Laura smoothed her hair back in the mirror and plucked out an eyelash that seemed to have gone astray. From her arsenal of perfume she took out a small rounded bottle of something she had bought a year ago but never tried. _Black Psyche_. It was the perfect match for Star's boots. The name was sexy, mystical, and empowering. Just holding the bottle close to her breasts transformed her into some radiant diaphanous form flowing through a realm that existed only between things and not in them.

She dabbed a bit on her neck. There was a sudden thump on the wall from next door and then the sound of a man hollering. It was a loud bellowing sound, sadder than angry, more desperate than aggressive. Then a second thump. An old bottle of antibiotics fell out of the medicine chest and onto the floor. Then a third. This time it was so loud she was sure a three hundred pound man had been thrown into the wall on the other side. The sound of someone crying, perhaps a woman or a child, took over. And then it subsided, replaced by a strong laughter that could have only belonged to a man twice Laura's size. The laughter stopped abruptly and then there was silence.

When she was sure the banging was over she stood quietly in front of the mirror, carefully trying to apply makeup to the right places on her face. But whenever she was sure she had picked the right color, she would suddenly change her mind; it was too casual, she would certainly be taken for a whore; it was too bright and obvious; it was too formal and prissy, the type of makeup worn by the Queen, or even worse, the Queen Mother. Finally she settled on a light red lipstick and some blue-gray eyeliner. It was enough to giver her face more definition, but not so much that it detracted from her features, or tried too hard to advertise that she was looking for something. To look for something while seeming not to was the secret to all true success.

She closed the medicine chest and walked out to the kitchen. After pouring herself a glass of water, she went to the living room and sat on the couch. When she finished the glass of water she dozed off for short time, she wasn't sure how long. Then the phone rang, breaking the stillness of the room as it woke her up.

"Hello," she said yawning as she fixed her bra strap. There was no answer. Something told her she was still asleep, but she didn't know for sure. There was something about the silence at the other end that was almost too frightening to be real.

"Hello," she repeated. She heard a chair shuffle, then the sound of someone breathing. It was so deep and clear she felt she had shrunk in all proportions and was standing inside a hot cavernous nose, surrounded on all sides by thick black hairs.

"What time is it?" the voice asked. It was male. The tone was also more nasal and weedy than the deep breathing implied. She became aware of the pulsing of pink light from a sign outside. How did it become dark so quickly?

"I don't know," she said.

"Why not?" the voice asked. By this time she had guessed that it was Fred, a guy from work who was known to play practical jokes on people. One time he had even convinced his mother he was getting married to a girl he had just met, only to call out April fools just as she pulled out her checkbook to pay for a booking she had made at a local Synagogue.

"Fred, if this is you, you'd better cut it out. It's not funny."

"I bet you don't even know what century it is," the voice said accusingly. She heard the sound of an eggbeater in the background and a woman laughing. She thought she heard the woman call out the name "Harry".

"Listen Fred or Harry or whoever you are..."

"And you don't even know my name. That's funny. What _do_ you know?"

"It's the twenty first century and you're a fucking prick! How's that? Now what do _you_ know?"

"That you are wearing blue panties." The woman in the background broke out laughing and then shouted out "Blue and gold panties. Just like Byzantium. Just like fucking Byzantium."

She wasn't wearing blue panties and never had. She felt more at ease. It meant she wasn't being watched. But how did they know her secret word, the name that had been hovering on the borders of her consciousness like a Las Vegas mirage since her first meeting with Halo?

"How do you know about Byzantium?"

"How? Just say it isn't the twenty first century and it never will be," the voice commanded. "And today I'm going to spoil everyone's party."

"What party?" She parted the curtains and looked out the window. The flashing pink sign had disappeared. Down in the street a large woman carrying a garbage bag was hollering at a small girl.

"Don't get any ideas, because you can't cry if you want to." The jet engine screech of a blender filled the background and she hung up. Almost instantly, the phone started ringing again. But it was far too soon to be the same number redialed. She held her hand above the receiver frozen in mid-decision. When it finally stopped ringing she picked it up and listened to the dial tone. The sound seemed to gain and drop in intensity as though controlled by an external force bent on toying with her imagination.

She slammed the phone down and almost instantly she heard a bang next door. Then there was that laughter again. A long satanic laughter that made her feel her mind was being invaded from all sides by some dark fluidic force.

"Well, if you're afraid of this," she said to herself, "then you might as well pack it in and tell Halo to find someone else."

The phone rang again. This time she picked it up on the first ring.

"It _is_ the fucking twenty first century and guess what?" she hollered. "I'm wearing white panties. What else do you need to know?" She held the receiver tightly to her ear and waited for a reply, but there was only silence. Then she heard the sound of the dial tone.

"Fuck you," she whispered under her breath. She imagined someone with a large stomach and a big bushy beard, like the lead singer from ZZ Top, laughing in some roach-infested apartment – maybe even the one next door to hers with all the banging - as he sat at a table playing cards with his friends, an old fashioned black telephone on the wall behind him. She slammed down the receiver.

As she waited for another call she sat on her bed and closed her eyes. When she opened them again she felt as though she had just emerged into a much greater reality than the one she had inhabited before she had shut them. She had been asleep all along and the phone call was just a dream. Or was it? After all, how could anyone have known so many of her most intimate secrets? Maybe they had seen her at the bookstore buying the book on Byzantium, but that didn't explain the comment about the twenty first century.

When she was fully awake she picked up the phone and dialed the cab company. Then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The buzzer suddenly rang and she sprang up from bed. She looked out the window. The cab. Had she fallen asleep yet again? She threw on her coat and rushed out the door into the common hallway. A man wearing a wide rimmed black hat and an Elvis tee shirt stepped out of the neighboring apartment. He was holding a Michelin map of New York in his hand and smirking at her, as though he were privy to a secret item of information he knew she was desperate to have. A cat darted out from the open door and rubbed against the wall.

"Fuck you," she said under her breath as she walked passed him. It had to be the guy on the phone. Who else could it have been?

The man laughed dryly before shrinking back into his apartment. The cat followed reluctantly, as though it didn't want to let out that it had anything to do with the man, and it was only a coincidence that they happened to be living under the same roof.

When she got downstairs the cab was waiting for her. The air was warm and soft and there were more people out than she had ever seen at one time near her building. Was there a parade going on that she hadn't heard about? It didn't seem likely as everyone seemed to be going in different directions and nobody was carrying a sign or a flag.

"Constantinople" was located on the first floor of an Art Deco building on the Upper West Side. A young, possibly teenaged, doorman greeted her at the door. He was slim and short, but balanced in proportions, and was dressed in a flowing red robe. He held a golden scepter in one hand and had a green fez angled on top of his head. He waved the scepter around in wide liberal swaths like some kind of urban Peter Pan as he guided her inside. A man in wearing a black Casablanca-style suit greeted her beyond the large glass and hammered brass doors. His hair was waxed back and he had a small black mustache that looked much darker than his hair.

"Reservations, madam?"

"Yes. Laura Chain. I left a message." She turned her eyes downwards, feeling suddenly ashamed of herself. It was like something from Kafka: guilt with no origin. Why should she be ashamed to be alone?

The man looked down at an appointment book and nodded earnestly. "Come this way," he said. He took her hand and pressed it between his palms. His skin felt lukewarm. "Follow me," he urged her once more.

The dining area was decorated in the style of a Turkish teahouse. There were ornately framed mirrors on the wall. In the corner was a glass and wood case filled with tall elegant water pipes and painted ceramic bowls. It looked like the kind of place that she might have liked at some other juncture of her life, but not necessarily now. The man seated her in at corner table under the shadow of a large leafed plant and scurried back through a pair of saloon doors into the kitchen.

Laura crossed her legs and swept her hair back languorously. She felt as though she was being watched, or soon would be watched. It was a feeling she liked, a feeling that made her feel more important and more vital. A feeling like she was once again somebody special and her life wasn't just an empty routine played out for some crass and indifferent audience. But this feeling lasted until the waiter brought her the menu, giving way to the same frustration that had been plaguing her for years. Or was it only months? It was hard to tell anymore. Byzantium. That was the problem. That was always the problem. What did it _really_ mean to live in the twenty first century? Was it possible to know the answer to this question at all? When Johnny Enzyme had crowned her on that magic carpet night so many years ago, he never got around to telling her the brutal truth. Perhaps in accepting the tiara on her head she had only become the queen of uncertainty, the queen of the endless search, the queen of nothing at all.

### Chapter 3.4

Gregory pressed his glass to his lips and emptied the last precious drops of Talisker into his mouth. It tasted like smoke and salt. It tasted like a wood fire by the ocean. It tasted like sand dollars and wet pebbles. It tasted like romance. It tasted like God. One day soon he and Laura would be huddled around a small mossy fire on the cold sands of a Scottish beach watching the waves lap in from the great dark ocean. The ocean. Gregory stood up and stumbled towards the men's room. He had been drinking alone in an isolated corner of the Constantinople for what seemed like hours. What had started out as a good idea, a way to end a productive day of work in a fresh and innovative way by going down for a few drinks so he could think about his most recent successes in a state of peaceful bliss, had already ended up in a drunken mess. He felt weak and small. Insignificant. Where was Laura? And where was Benny, for that matter? The sleek little liar had assured him that if he did nothing Laura would come to him. Maybe Benny had deliberately given him bad advice just to get back at him. He had half a mind to call her up and tell her what he thought of her nasty little games and remind her once and for all why he had left her. He had never really told her the dirty details because he was too much of a gentleman. But now he had a good reason to. It was her small and deflated _derriere_ that ultimately put an end to things. A bad ass was a bad ass in any era. Initially he was fooled by her diamond district walk and Dom Pérignon complexion, but once she dropped her pants and the light flicked on he saw her body for what it really was: a twig of flesh and bone, a rack with no purpose but to drape her wardrobe on. Certainly nothing a discriminating young man like him could ever be happy with. And that was the beginning of the end between them.

He walked by a table and grabbed hold of the trunk of a tall tropical plant, using it as a fulcrum as he swung around the corner. There was a sudden tug on his shirt from behind. Just as he was about to shout something rude he turned around to see Laura sitting no more than three feet away from him holding a tall cocktail that didn't look out of place beside the tree. She smiled in a way that made him feel that he hadn't upset her by appearing irate and almost yelling at her. By the looks of it she may have even found it funny.

"Laura," he said with surprise. "What are you doing here?" He struggled to contain his elation. Benny was right, after all. Girls always came looking for you when they liked you. He felt guilty for having harbored such cruel thoughts about her. If anything it was God's fault for being so cruel as to not reward her with a better ass in return for all selfless years of prayer and devotion.

"I just got here," she answered. "I didn't know you hung around here. I was just..." She paused and struggled for an excuse, noticing how dazed Gregory looked. He was obviously inebriated, but that didn't matter. She knew how to handle drunks, and even enjoyed toying with them when they weren't too obtuse. Most men were so wrapped up in their careers that it was hard to find out what they were really like underneath it all. But a few drinks was all it took to solve that problem. "I was just shopping," she finally said. It wasn't a great line, but maybe it would do. Men liked to hear that women were shopping. Mace once told her it made men feel the world was sane and that God was Pooh Bear after all. Women seemed so emotionally complex to them that the one thing that made them appear simple was their love of shopping.

"It's good to shop," Gregory said. He let go of the tree. "It keeps the economy rolling."

"The economy could always use a little boost," she echoed vacantly, trying not to sound too smart. Men were often threatened by intellectual women. Everyone knew that. Everyone but men. They never liked to admit they were threatened by anything.

Gregory put his hand over his crotch and wriggled his thighs. "Just a moment," he said. "I have to go...not away, I mean. In there." He pointed towards the bathroom. "Can I join you when I get back?"

"Of course," she said. "I had a nice time talking to you at the art opening. I'm sorry I had to run off so suddenly."

Gregory threw up his hands in a gesture of reconciliation. "Don't worry. I figured you were late for an appointment." Then he raced in short quick steps towards the men's room.

Laura took out a cigarette and lit it. As she watched the smoke from the bright orange tip coil upwards like a cobra rising from the hidden comforts of its basket, she imagined its randomly expanding hood was a metaphor for her life, or rather, what it had become since she met Halo. The whole enterprise with Gregory suddenly took on a more fatalistic hue. The only real freedom she had was in _how_ she seduced him, and not _if_ she would seduce him. On the surface he was vain and narcissistic, yet he also seemed malleable and insecure underneath it all. In short, he was an easy target. More importantly, he was symbol of Stork and her mission to infiltrate his life thus represented a new phase in her own life, a phase of loving for the sake of revenge, something she never thought she was capable of doing, yet was unconsciously craving for all along. Everyone was ready to fight, but no one knew what for. We all wanted to love, but never really knew if the one we loved was really _the one_. And that was the pain of uncertainty, the pain of living, and because of this for whatever reason at that very moment in time it all came down to the trembling hoops of rising there in front of her and how slowly they melted away into the air.

Gregory unzipped his fly and leaned into the urinal. "Damn," he said when he realized his thigh was touching against a wet area on the porcelain. He stepped back, watching the yellow stream hit the back of the urinal and fan out like a monochromic peacock's tail. The stream subsided into a trickle and finally died down completely. He shook his penis and did up his zipper. He walked over to the sink and started washing his hands. A man with a long white beard and a plaid suit walked in and staked his position at the second sink beside Gregory.

"Did you see the girl just sitting outside by herself?" he asked the man. The man turned to him and stared with icy curiosity like a marine biologist viewing an unusual new species of fish. Gregory scrubbed his hands harder under the faucet.

"I'm sorry," the man said stiffly. His overall appearance suddenly shifted to that of a film critic. It was his spotted bow tie and colorless resin-frame glasses, the shape of those that Buddy Holly always wore and a few people in New York, who were trying to look awkward as a way of seeming more intelligent, had recently adopted.

"I'm talking about the woman by the door," Gregory whispered.

"I'm sorry. I wasn't aware of anyone when I came in."

"Are you sure?" Gregory reflected in dismay. Hadn't Laura vanished on him once before already? Wasn't that why he had to call up Benny for advice? Women always vanished, always disappeared. Even when you married them they still found ways of disappearing, only more subtle and cruel. For instance, they might change their appearance or interests. Or they might start going out with glum frozen expressions on their faces to spend the evening with some new all-male clique from the office they now referred to as "friends". That was another way. Or they could just stay home and watch television all night while you begged them to open up and start talking to you again. That was the worst insult, to be cheated on without there even being a culprit to help you focus the blame.

"Thanks, bud," Gregory said. He emphasized "bud" in chummy populist way that was certain to indulge the man's derision. The man wrinkled his lips in contempt and walked away.

When Gregory returned to the table he was almost surprised to see Laura still sitting there staring off into space. She hadn't run away. It was a genuinely beautiful sight. A woman in reflection. What could she possibly be thinking about? He pulled out the seat across from her and sat down. There was some kind of African music playing in the background.

"Where did you run off to anyway?" he asked, picking up the conversation exactly where it had ended.

Laura wasn't sure what he meant. She looked inquisitively into his eyes, hoping to claw out an answer. "Shopping, you mean?"

"No, at the art show," he said.

"Ahhh. I was wondering what you meant. An appointment," she said. "Just like you guessed."

"Telepathy," he said with humor. "It's a good omen. It means we are spiritually linked."

She leaned forward in a way that suggested intimacy. "I had to go and meet a friend." Although she was lying, it was a pure lie, a lie that was created solely for the purpose of making herself look more decent and worldly. No one in New York went out to art openings alone. Only a woman raised in the womb of West coast cultural iconography would go to an art opening alone. In Manhattan going out alone proved you had no real influence and were therefore a nobody. And if you were a female nobody that made things even worse – it made you a nobody with a sex and drug addiction to boot.

"A friend?" Gregory imagined a man wearing a leather jacket and DKNY sunglasses driving up in a shiny new BMW and barreling off with her into the sunset.

"Yes. He's just an old friend," she said. She smiled and shrugged her shoulders with renewed compliancy. "We still go out sometimes.

"Ah," he said. That was a good sign. She had an old lover who was still mad about her, but she was trying to shrug him off to look for someone new, someone like him. He nodded his head up and down repeatedly until he felt silly, like a small child on a rocking horse. What if she had noticed? He nodded his head in faster, more obvious arcs, to let her know that it had all been a comic gesture and had nothing to do with the drunkenness he was hoping she hadn't yet noticed.

"He helped me with an advertising project I worked on promoting pheromones in aftershave."

"What a coincidence," he exclaimed. "I just had an investment opportunity involving pheromone sensors on mobile devices."

"That _is_ a coincidence...." She paused struggling for something else to say. "Do you like art?" she finally asked. Then she felt stupid. Of course he liked art or he wouldn't have come to the opening.

"Sometimes," he said. "I used to. Now I'm in business. I'm trying to change things, you know."

"Yes," she said, nodding her head enthusiastically, although she wasn't quite sure what he meant.

"Changing things. Like tomorrow," he said. Then he lost his train of thought. But she kept staring at him with those streaming childlike eyes. He had to go on. "Why if tomorrow was the same as today, what use would it be to live in?"

"None," she said. "I mean, unless you like repetition."

"Hey..." Gregory remembered something from a philosophy and literature course for business students he once took. "Wasn't it Nietzsche that had a theory of eternal recurrence?"

"I don't know." She really didn't. She had always avoided serious philosophy in her course work. Maybe it just reminded her of her mother's boyfriend, but it always seemed dusty and dry, not like literature or art. It was death, not life.

"There was something about a dwarf in a gray suit coming by and whispering something in your ear about how history went around in a big circle and went on forever. Every moment you would live in again and again."

"Oh, now I know," Laura said. "Woody Allen. I think it was _Hannah and Her Sisters_. Yes, that was it. Does that mean I'll have to see the Ice Capades over and over again?"

Gregory hiccupped in the middle of his laughter. "That would really be awful. But what do you make of the gray dwarf? Why gray? I don't get it."

"I'm not sure. But, there's a Bob Dylan song where there's a gray flannel dwarf that screams. Maybe there's some connection."

He stared into the blue Chantilly lace of her eyes. She was smiling and leaning towards him like only a woman who was gagging for him would. He had to step up his act and let her know that he was gagging for her too, and it wasn't just an accident that they met. He leaned towards her until his chest was touching the table. "What generation are you from," he asked, breaking the short-lived spell between them. Suddenly it seemed like a stock icebreaker from a dating site, but maybe it wasn't. America was so fragmented these days. You could have ten different generations hidden in the same generation. It all started back in the nineties when suddenly there wasn't just one scene to worry about. It all depended what you were into. Some were into Ecstasy and others were into Birkenstocks. A lot of people were into both. "Maybe that came out wrong," he continued. "What I meant, was more like which generation do you identify yourself with or feel closer to? Like, are you a sixties love child, a mod, a Millennial, a Gen Xer?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "I grew up by myself with only a few close friends. Whatever generation I might have been a part of, I was only an outsider of. But maybe that's what everyone feels like these days. The media throws all generations at us simultaneously until we don't even know who we are anymore unless _Facebook_ tells us with its automated friend suggestions and targeted pop up adds. So, maybe it's just a sign of the times." She looked at her wristwatch and took a quick peck at her drink. As strange as it might seem, she was almost enjoying his company. He seemed to have a loose grip on matters, letting them slide through him and gain momentum so as to hold him up and even propel him forward, rather than trying to stop them and take control. Back west they called this "riding the wave", an allusion that always conjured mixed feelings for her. There were just too many longhaired surfers with dicks for brains littering the beaches of California and Oregon as they searched for women to mother them while simultaneously laying the foundation stones to screw around behind their backs once they found that perfect woman. She knew what kind of warped misogynism lurked behind the apparent innocence of songs like "Surfing Girl."

"All I know is that I'm _not_ a surf chick," she finally said. "That's for sure."

"I like you more and more." Her eyes changed as though to conceal a sudden dissatisfaction. He wondered if his comment had come off as presumptuous. A million men would have used the same line and gotten away with it, but would also have had to answer to Dorian Gray in the long run. That was the one book he had always read and reread. The only book he had ever read outside of college. Somewhere in Dorion Gray he saw someone he both loved and hated, almost in the way he viewed himself. It wasn't that he was a ringer for Oscar Wilde's famous character, but more that there was a strange intangible thread linking them together.

"Do you read much?" he asked out of the blue. "No wait. I already know you read. Dostoevsky. I'm still sure of it. I can see it by the way you carry yourself."

"How do you mean? Apart from the _Russian sense of intrigue_ , or course..."

"Well, look at your watch. It's the sort of piece that only a classy woman would wear. It's a literary woman's piece."

"And only a "classy" guy would call a watch a "piece"," she said with sarcasm. "You sound like a jewelry salesman." She straightened her arm so that her wrist slipped out of the cover of her cuff and the watch was in full visibility. Gregory took her hand and went to whisper in her ear.

"This _is_ a lovely piece," he said, playing along with her. In a sudden rush he became aware of the white tablecloth and everything on it rising like a tidal wave to his face. He heard a crash and when he looked down everything was on the floor.

"You're drunk," she exclaimed, startled. She stood up and shook her head as she stepped backwards from the table. He broke out laughing as he lay there staring straight up at the ceiling. But instead of condemning him she started laughing with him. She laughed and she laughed like she hadn't in years. It was a deep and self-satisfied laugh, one that reached into the depths of her soul and connected her with something that had remained dormant for so long she had forgotten it even existed. She was suddenly holding Star's hand racing through the blinding snow with a bottle of Jack Daniels in her hand. Something was finally happening again.

"But tomorrow I'll be sober," he proclaimed as he held up his index finger and then collapsed to the floor, a puddle of ice water in his lap. "And you'll still be..." He paused for a second to remember the rest of what Winston Churchill had once said and lifted his head to meet her gaze. She was staring at him with a big grin waiting for him to finish the sentence. "Beautiful," he said. She grinned even more.

"That was a close one," she said. She grabbed his hand and started to pull him up. "I was waiting for you to say anything but that."

"So what are the consequences?"

She let go of his hand and he fell to the ground again.

"Ouch!" he cried. A waiter rushed over in panic and started helping him up while a busboy ran out of the kitchen with a rag and lifted the table back into its position.

"I'm sorry," she said to him. He was wiping water off his pants in quick brisk strokes of his hands.

"It's not the first time, you know. You're not the first girl to dump me on my bottom in a restaurant. The last one..."

"Don't tell me about the last one," she said.

There was a warmth in her voice that was irresistible.

"There's always a last one. What matters is today," she said, trying not to sound too much like a convert of some new age religion.

"I guess you're right," he said. "Speaking of 'living in the moment', I think these fellows might want some money." He pulled out his wallet and put a hundred-dollar bill on the table. "I'm sorry," he said to the waiter.

"It wasn't your fault," the waiter said with controlled cordiality, his anger and contempt obvious beneath the strain of his polite expression.

"Shall we go?" Gregory asked as he turned to Laura.

"Shall we? I guess we have to now. Just to save face. I really don't..."

Gregory sensed she thought he wanted to take her home and that she wasn't sure she was quite ready for it. Fair enough, he thought. She was worth waiting for. And this time he wasn't going to let her go. Before he even had a chance to ask she had already slipped her business card in his hand.

"I have to go. Busy day at work tomorrow," she said. She winked at him and turned to walk away.

"I'll call," he said.

"I'll be waiting."

She swirled around and started walking towards the door. And then she kept walking. The city lights were as those in apocalyptic dreams where the sky is a fury of light and color. A shooting star appeared on the horizon and then disappeared. Gregory watched her figure shrink in the distance and finally vanish into the cool black air until she was no more than the sharp clicking of her shoes on the pavement echoing off the walls of the buildings onto the streets and then down the drainpipes into the dark and murky shadows of the night. Soon she was so far from the restaurant that everything that had just happened already seemed like a dream.

Chapter 3.5

Gregory stirred in his bed, becoming increasingly aware of a bright orange light flowing in from all sides as he gradually ascended through the endless cloud layers of his dreams. He was riding a bolt of yellow fire and somewhere in the distance there was a loud metallic pop, as if a car or bus had suddenly imploded in traffic, and then all was silence. After some time he could detect the faint outline of a human voice somewhere nearby. It wasn't a calm disembodied voice like that of the Carrier, but one more tangible and real. It was also softer and more caring. It was female. The white rims of the clouds became almost blinding before everything was suddenly dark and he was overcome by a thick sense of corporeality. At last he could feel his body and limbs. He could also feel his heart pounding and the sheets against his body. He opened his eyes. The sun was pouring in through an open window beside him and a woman was shouting from somewhere outside as she haggled with a man about something, it wasn't clear what. Gregory rubbed his eyes and propped his neck up against the headboard of his bed. After a few minutes he pulled his sheet down to the base of his stomach and got up.

In the Italian marble sanctuary of his bathroom he examined himself in the mirror. The skin beneath his neck was white with small red marks on it that were neither pimples nor moles. His chest hairs looked like the legs of some shaggy insect, and his stomach swelled like that of an old panhandler. He shook his head back and forth to inject some much-needed spark into his expression. With a sudden burst of energy he charged into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. After a night of drinking water always seemed lighter and more refreshing than usual, a pale blue gas immune to all gravity, the walls of the glass struggling to hold the rarified fluid within its boundaries. One day science would have special names for every type of hangover and exactly how much water and vitamins you had to take to fend off each one. Two scotches and a cream soda with gin gave you a type twenty-one which could only be controlled by drinking fifty-three milliliters of water, six free-range eggs, and a glass of cranberry juice. A type forty-eight was caused by seven pints of bad lager in an eighties-style disco. It was a water and aspirin hangover that only a long walk in the forest could help beat into submission. But how long a walk? Maybe that depended on how much smoke there was in the disco, your body weight, and whether or not you had ordered a pizza before you went to bed. But science would figure it out one day. Exactly. He was sure of it. They had to. Most people would rather have a cure for the hangover than a new theory of the universe. There was a Nobel Prize hanging out in hangovers, and Gregory knew it. Once the _New Finance_ got off the ground and the real money started crashing in, he would be the first person in history to start up a foundation for research into hard drinking. Great scholars would brag on Harvard Lawn about the size of their Walden Fellowships or argue about the relative levels of whiskey dick caused by various brands of single malt scotch. Start-up companies would spring up all over Silicon Valley selling his patented cure for the common hangover.

He went back to the bathroom and picked up a flattened tube of toothpaste that was sitting to the left of the sink. It had been flat for almost a month, but somehow he was always able to squeeze out enough to cover his toothbrush. He rolled the tube from the bottom upwards, but nothing came out. A bird thudded into the bathroom window and fell quickly from view.

"Damn stupid thing," he hollered. On days like this it seemed like half the entire universe was employed to harass the other half. Taxmen harassed businessmen. Teachers harassed students. Mothers harassed sons and girls harassed other girls they thought were prettier or uglier than they were. Everyone harassed everyone else. Even people who weren't supposed to harass people found ways of doing so. Taxmen harassed other taxmen, cops harassed other cops, and saviors harassed other saviors. It was a singularity in the pecking order of the world. Not only did you have to ward off those below you, but also those beside you and above you. Nature was an ugly thing, something any sane man was best to avoid.

He splashed some water on his face and took his place in the living room. A smile inched across his face as details from the night before emerged like tiny crabs from beneath the limpet-coated rocks of his hangover. Showing up drunk and collapsing into a table wasn't the sort of strategy that worked for most. It was the kind of thing that sent women running in the other direction long before the notion of sitting with you in a Cadillac convertible to watch the sunrise ever crossed their minds. It was a sure recipe for disaster set to stifle even the most seasoned Adonis. But for some reason it worked. It was a brilliant stroke of fortune that she was there in the first place but somehow his Vegas slots run of good luck had gained even more momentum and propelled the evening towards its inevitable climax. He had once read in 'Penthouse' that women were often afraid of men they had just met because they saw them as stronger and more threatening presences than themselves. If a woman were to see a man in a situation that showed a certain vulnerability, then she would have more reason to feel for him and trust him more, having seen a glimpse of a weaker and less imposing person hidden behind the potentially threatening exterior. Perhaps falling into the table like a strutting ass was precisely the sort of "glimpse" she needed to reach out and touch the real man inside him.

He spent the next hour checking his e-mail and preparing for a day of meetings and telephone calls. There was a message about how the management structure in a University of Chicago spin out he had invested in was failing. _If managers can't even manage to manage how are we going to manage at all?_ he mused. There was also a new message about the pheromone sensor and how the IP had just been licensed to a company with a revolutionary new dating and sex app that was set to be the _Uber_ of on-line dating, the _Google Maps_ of invasive porn. It was called _4-Players_ \- a triple pun - and the inventors claimed when attached to an i-phone the sensor could detect when people were horny and thus allow its users to zero in on the best chances for quick sex using the sensor data and location services. Since _Facebook_ could already "listen" in on you by almost telepathically placing pop up adds on your live feed for things you had just been thinking about the day before was it really such a leap to have some app know when you were horny? He wasn't convinced. And if it really did everything they claimed, could it tell if you were more interested in a panty fuck or a hothouse fuck or would you have to wait for _4-players 2.0_ for that? He would definitely need more info before considering an investment.

At the bottom of his morning e-mails was a reminder from Henderson for the meeting he organized for later that afternoon to work out preliminary details for the proposed virtual bank. The transfiguration of money into flesh and spirit. That was more like it. What could be better, in fact? Not only was it a chance to further amplify his resources, but it would also propel his stature in the New York arts community to greater heights than ever before. Nobody gave a damn about bankers and financiers, but everyone lavished software developers and Internet pioneers with the same fawning adulation as they did artists and musicians. He was already a regular donor to local art galleries and film revival houses, dropping a few hundred dollar bills at whatever wine and cheese they had going, but he had never been actively involved in something as inspirational as the first virtual bank. Visual art was nothing more than the feather on the peacock – something that could be used to attract a potential mate – but financial art, that was something destined for the skies! Artists were confused reclusive figures that never were able to reap the societal fruits of their harvest to sprout into fully-fledged men of the world. Van Gogh pined away alone in cafés while rich socialites dropped his name in the most exclusive salons to help broker diplomatic deals or woo potential sex partners. But was it possible that artists were more than just social misfit sages with a steady hand and enough free time to smear just the right amount of prophetic paint across a blank canvass to cast their Orphean spell over the world of high society? If this was the case, the virtual bank was bound to be the acid test. He would be the first true artist of financial cyberspace. But would he end up a goateed film director shouting orders through his megaphone to actresses he had just slept with the night before, or was he destined to live out his days a lonely composer drooped sadly over his piano crying out for just a scrap of critical acclaim? These were the sorts of things that he was sure to find out as the first _bona fide_ Rembrandt of the financial world.

Gregory turned on his computer and located the Credit Lyonais financial pages on the Web. He entered his password and in moments he was in. Just as he was about to get started his cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and answered.

"Hello?" he said softly. Something inside him told him it was Laura.

There was silence at the other end.

"Laura?"

"No," the voice uttered darkly. There was a hint of mockery in the tone. "Laos."

Gregory swallowed a lump in his throat. Had he forgotten to call?

"I'm in a small arcade in the airport. There's no one here. The airport was just evacuated because of an Ebola scare."

"Then maybe you should get out too."

"Did you ever stop to think that I started the scare so I could operate with some degree of security? Even the toughest of airport officials would run and hide at the slightest mention of a biological threat. It's fear that really drives the world."

Gregory felt a sudden sense of panic. His world was a bobsled streaking down an icy hill into a wall of evergreens. But it wasn't Ebola or the Carrier. It was Laura he was afraid of. Her image lurked inside him like a dark cloud at dusk. He was terrified of the soft swell of red on the peak of her imagined white breast and how much he craved it. What would he do if he couldn't have it? Worse, what would he do if he actually got it? Women like her knew how to cut through the layer of posturing and turn a man inside out. A car beeped its horn outside and he wished for a moment that Benny were standing there beside him. Even Morning - his hippie Chinese first-girlfriend who had five aquariums and listened to _Yes_ \- would do.

"Are you still there?" asked the Carrier.

"Of course," he said awkwardly. "I was just thinking. Do you have something for me?"

"There are numerous things I have. I have at least six things that can be divided into two categories, but they have to be given to you on three separate days after nine PM."

"I see," said Gregory. He wrote the numbers six, two, three, and nine on a note pad that normally hung above the buzzer intercom. If anyone saw it, they would assume it was a part of a phone number or address.

"In eight days I'll be leaving at seven thirty eight from Laos. It's a two hour flight and I should be able to call you exactly four hours after that."

"Understood," said Gregory. He completed the sequence on his notepad. They were special numbers that would give him access to a hidden account that would be receiving money shortly. It was a massive amount from who knows where out of which he could skim off the top from the difference in exchange rates after he returned it and then destroyed any evidence of it ever having existed by converting it to Bitcoin. Where did the money come from? Only the Carrier knew the details. Maybe it was from the bank account of a deposed monarch or drug lord that had far too much cash on his hands. Or maybe it was from the secret holdings of some corrupt FIFA official embezzling money from the last World Cup. Whatever the case, it would give him the funds to front the virtual bank and gain a whole new circumference of influence in the world financial community.

"The financial world is folding in on itself," the Carrier said. Gregory wasn't sure what he meant. "In time the political world will follow it."

"In time," Gregory repeated. Then he wondered if he was running late for his meeting.

"In time. Everything happens in time." Then there was a dead silence at he end of the line that made Gregory nervous. It wasn't a silence that completed a sequence of events and added closure, but one that implied something much greater and possibly even life threatening that was hiding from view just waiting for the perfect moment for expression. There was a crackle and then the sound of an operator's voice, as though Gregory had inadvertently stumbled across a secret conversation between two AT & T officials, and then just the drone of a broken phone connection. He felt angry and disappointed with the Carrier. It was wrong of him to leave him on such an uncertain note, infected with such a gaping silence that would only complicate his life by undermining his confidence and plaguing him with a mushrooming sense of paranoia.

He put the phone down and hung the note pad back beside the wall buzzer. After a small glass of water to freshen him up, he walked out into the wild violet morning. The world was ranging with love and electricity. So why was he upset? He had all the numbers he needed on a little piece of paper and he had a new and boundless woman in the palm of his hand. What could be better? He hailed a cab and within fifteen minutes he was seated at the head of a large oval table with seven charcoal-suited men. This was the meeting he had been waiting for.

"Lets review the role of marketing," Gregory opened pointedly. It was an obvious leading question.

"You didn't get the memo?" asked a man wearing wire-rimmed glasses Gregory guessed was Westerly. He had never met Westerly, but had heard he was important in the corporate accounting world and had very powerful political connections – a personal friend of Dick Cheney.

"Memo? I guess I didn't check. I've been swamped with paperwork lately."

"Swamped," repeated Henderson. "We've all been swamped. I'd like to hear about the marketing structure again too. Not the whole thing. Just a five minute, no make that a one minute, summary."

Gregory felt relieved. He wasn't the only one at the meeting who didn't know what was going on.

"OK," said Westerly. He didn't seem at all annoyed. "A new bank is like a fruit bud on a tree. You have to bring it on and nurture it for success. A lot of buds look good in May, and a lot of banks look good in the proposal."

"Fruits don't have buds," Henderson interjected. "I think you mean flowers."

"You're completely missing the point," Westerly countered. "How many perfect pears do you see when its time to pick? About as many as World Series winners you see in October. Maybe a few more than that, but you get my point. That's why we need support. We need money. We also need ideas, but not too many. Ideas are like fertilizer. If you put too much in, you can burn the leaves and buds. It's best to err on the side of fewer ideas if you want a true blockbuster. And that's just banks. Internet banks are a different story altogether. I mean we have competition from Ethereum and all those block-chain ICOs to worry about."

"This is not just an internet bank," Gregory insisted. "It's something much deeper and more disruptive that's likely to change the face of society.

"So what's the pitch," asked Henderson irately. "Is this a loan company for orchard keepers or what?" Gregory had never seen Henderson shoot from the hip so brusquely.

"Sorry." Westerly laughed to hide his slight embarrassment. "I was just thinking of a film I saw that takes place on a small island off of India. There was a US military base and some fundamentalist rebels."

"Wait a minute," said Gregory. "This is already sounding like a cliché."

"Not quite," said Westerly. "You start with success and then tweak it. Clichés are clichés only because they were once a success and then got imitated until everyone was sick of them. What you have to do with a cliché is push it a little one way or the other. That's where India comes in. India is one of the great old cultures of the world, something everyone relates to when you talk of the past. So when you talk about the future of banking you have to make it look like all banks are really locked in the past. Hence, India."

"Wait," Henderson interjected. "Are you sure this is a good idea with all the tension between India and Pakistan these days? You can't make the US army look bad. The days of _Platoon_ are over. Since 9/11 we're a new country."

"That's why I am keying in on the spiritual aspects of India. That's one thing they got right. Modern banks are like ancient India. But money is like Mana and nobody, not even the banks, have realized this. So in a way we will be criticizing banks for being primitive, but we will also be making a case for the spiritual nature of money. The Bull and the Bear – Shiva's ultimate death dance!"

"Brilliant," Gregory exclaimed. He slammed his fist on the table in satisfaction. He could already smell the perfume on Laura's neck as she kissed him and congratulated him on the birth of a new financial empire.

"Just think of the TV ads," Westerly enthused. "Leonardo DiCaprio would look fabulous depositing money in his account through a hand held wireless device in the bathroom of a New Delhi nightclub."

"And Johnny Depp would look even better checking his balance in the back of a VW microbus listening to Sitar music with a huge roach burning in his fingers. This bank will be for everyone, rich and poor, sinner or saint."

"Have you talked to any of these guys yet?" asked Henderson.

"No," replied Westerly. "But I have their agent in my hip pocket. Actors are like plumbers. Just call them up and they'll come over and do whatever it takes to get things flowing."

Gregory leaned back in his chair and burped as though he had just finished a great Oriental feast. The ad campaign was going to be huge. With big names like DiCaprio and Depp in the mix, the television commercials were bound to be a box office hit. It wouldn't be long before they could make concrete plans: locations, actors, actresses, and directors. It would take a cool twenty million to get going but that's where the Carrier fit in. All Gregory had to do was get the numbers from the Carrier and open up the Starlight account and then the floodgates would open. It was really that simple. Absolute bliss was just a breath away. And so too was Laura.

### Chapter 3.6

The dusk cast a grim mood of unreality throughout Laura's living room, condemning her for that moment to a gray and lonely purgatory. She was sitting alone on her couch staring into a cup of lukewarm tea. Such moments often conjured the two most troubling questions of her existence. One question was theoretical, almost mystical; on some level she had always been drawn to the unknown. If the universe had started in a big bang then where exactly was the center or was it always moving? She preferred to think that everything exploded out of one central point and that everything would one day be sucked back into that very same point as into the belly of a giant spider enthroned at the center of a vast web spanning the entire universe. But something inside her told her that it couldn't be so simple: the world had no center, so why should the universe? If what everyone said about fractals was true, that reality repeated patterns on increasingly smaller scales, then the entire universe should be visible in a grain of sand. But anyone who ever looked long and hard enough into a grain of sand in an electron microscope could tell you it had no center. On the atomic level every point was exactly the same and nothing had primacy over anything else. But if you probed a little deeper beyond the subatomic threshold, all you could detect was a fatalistic dance of quarks appearing and disappearing in a tumultuous _Right of Spring_ of who knows what meaning or interpretation. Why was this question so troubling to her, she asked herself as she watched the cold white satellites of night drifting across the blue-black sky. It was chaos and chaos meant no control. And where there was no control everything was possible and nothing could be said to be different from anything else. It didn't matter what anyone did, said, or thought. In a black hole everything was the same. It frightened her to confront such a thought. It made her toss and turn as she sweated rivers into her freezing sheets at night. It made her cling to Mace for her life like a remora on the back of a shark. To imagine all her thoughts and feelings, all her hopes and aspirations, were at the end of the day only random blip of static scratching its way out from the voice coil of some broken cosmic radio was too much to bear.

The other question that troubled her was less of a question than a kind of foreknowledge. It was a faint and deadly inkling that crept inside her sometimes as she passed through the node between wakefulness into sleep. It would thrust her into a deep and silent nightmare before hurling her back with such a loud and harrowing scream that she couldn't fall asleep again until dawn. The origin of this thought came from the notion that everything in life must eventually face that which it created, whether good or bad. Deep inside Laura knew that she had sinned so much, that if she ever gave birth to a child it would be the very embodiment of her crimes. It wasn't just the tiny sins: the sneers, the cold indifference, or the sexual proclivities. It was something much bigger. When the World Trade Center fell she knew it was because of her. The Taliban were in Afghanistan. She was Afghanistan. It was the twenty-first century. She was the twenty-first century. She had brought them to her. She had brought them to New York. Without even knowing it, some perilous magnetism had pulled them together in one great cataclysmic event and because of this, her child would be something so dark and spiteful it would grow up devouring everything in its path and ultimately condemn her for all eternity for bringing it into existence. In her dreams (nightmares) she met it playing with snakes in its crib, a look of reckless glee smeared across its tiny face. In shopping malls she often saw it standing beside her reflection holding a tiny white box she always imagined contained some hideous toy that would unleash a great plague on the world if anyone ever played with it. Her baby (incubus) would follow her around, crying in the streets as it tugged on her coattail demanding newer and newer toys (implements of destruction) all the time. Yet however much she feared and hated it, she loved it. That was what scared her the most. She loved its most sinister screams in the middle of the night as it sat alone it its crib waiting for her to come and feed it. She loved it. She loved it with all her hate. And she loved to hate it even more. And this was why she never wanted a family. She already had one, or rather, giving birth would just bring the dark child one step closer to the world, one step closer to fulfilling its wish to one day destroy her.

She always thought that if Mace ever had a child it would be the absolute antithesis of her demon child (maybe that's why she felt they could never have a baby – it would cancel itself out somewhere in the womb and become an abstract singularity even before it was born). That was because Mace was much nicer on the inside than she was. Mace was fundamentally good even though he acted like he was bad and had been in jail several times, including once for a crime so bad he swore he would never tell her. If Mace had a baby it would be the falsetto in a biker's choir. It would be so pure and cherubic in its black leather jumpsuit it would belch in D Minor as it filled the air with heavenly perfume from its velvet diapers. But what would _really_ happen if she ever had a child with Mace? If it could somehow overcome the laws of moral physics and escape her womb without some quantum collapse? Would it be in between or would one side win out and destroy the other? Or would they have Siamese twins, a head for each of them? Yet even then there would always be a dominant one. After thinking about this question for years she decided it was wrong to ask. There was no way of knowing. And that was why she was afraid. It was Chaos. She would never have anything to hold on to. There wouldn't be anything worth living for.

She fell asleep and when she woke up it was already morning. She walked into the bathroom and began combing her hair with the dour determination of nun, drawing the thick black claws of the comb through her hair over and over again until every last tangle was gone. It was the same way she handled stress and indecision. When she finished she poured herself a glass of orange juice and sat down in her kitchen. As she was just about to pick up the morning newspaper her i-phone rang. She opened the cover and admired the smoothly contoured digits on its oceanic blue display. On the seventh ring she finally answered.

"Hello, Laura," she heard the voice and recognized it immediately. A stone dropped inside her. It was Halo.

"Yes," she replied. Her tone was cautious and businesslike.

"You are doing well," he encouraged her. "I can feel that this project is going to work out."

"I hope so."

"But be careful of enjoying it too much. Then you might remove your role from its _natural state_."

She had the uncomfortable sensation that her mind was porous and Halo had just been reading her thoughts, or perhaps that they both occupied the same mental space for a brief moment in some alternate dimension.

"There is no question of that," she said. She felt a strange sense of loyalty to a higher cause, as though her country was under threat and she was following orders from some unspoken manifesto of patriotism. But what was that cause and who was she loyal to? "What is the natural state of a thing anyway?" she asked.

"How can you tell? What is a thing? Does everything have to possess a natural state?"

"You always answer my questions with more questions."

"What good is an answer if it only kills the conversation?"

"Another question."

"I'm just trying to make a point. It is an important one, too. Important to your case. What is the natural state of Mr. Walden? Is he a gigolo, a computer hacker and money launderer, or something we have not yet determined? Or is it wrong to make such judgments and distinctions in the first place? Can't a man be several different things to several different people? And what about countries throughout history?"

"What about them?" she asked dryly. He was starting to annoy her. She wondered if he had spies watching her and who he really was and if he had other motives for having her pursue Gregory.

"Don't you find it ironic that a country like Iran, once in possession of its own profound layers of art, culture, music, mathematics, and poetry rebels against the Shah, in an apparent lashing out against American colonization, only to replace him with an artifact of Arab colonization?"

"Zoroastrianism." She nodded her head intelligently. She had studied it in college; the devil had a different name, Ahriman, and was supposed to be infinitely more evil and deceitful than the Christian version, but also somehow necessary in the evolution of the cosmos.

"Very good. The soul is a battle between good spirits and evil spirits. It is our role to drive away the evil ones and foster the influence of the good ones."

"It always seemed fatalistic to me, as though a person can only choose between two possibilities and had no say otherwise."

"As though they had a choice between colonization between two different peoples."

"Yes," she said. "Now that you mention it, why do all those Egyptian terrorists want Islam to take over, as though rejecting the west necessitates accepting Islam rather than their own ancient culture?"

"You learn quickly. You would make a terrible politician."

"I never thought of it that way." And indeed, she never had. The closest she had ever come to politics was a winter cold spell ten years ago during which she often harbored sexual fantasies about Hamid Karzai. He was a swarthy, Middle Eastern Charlemagne garbed in a dazzling green Uzbek war cloak. She imagined she was his concubine and they made love in military tents while the soldiers fought on the slopes of the Hindu Kush Mountains and his cooks prepared elaborate Dansak dishes for them. Karzai would risk execution by the Taliban and cross the country on a motorbike to deliver a message to the Northern Alliance and later meet her in the quiet hush of her bedchamber. But was this politics or sex? Laura was convinced it was neither. It was her duty as _the first woman of the twenty-first century_. Politics were only a part of the first two millennia. There was the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire (not that again), the Ottoman Empire, then the Euro-American Empire, and finally the Information Empire. That was the third millennia. The twenty-first century. The age of information. Countries weren't in power anymore. Neither were corporations (how passé). Kings had no say in anything. Information (or rather, misinformation and media manipulation) called all the shots. Information was the new Stalin, the new Gandhi, the new Buddha, the transcendental spirit that lay dormant in every last object in God's universe.

"So now that you seem to be getting on so well with him, all you need to do is find a special sequence of numbers. A code. These numbers - they are called private keys - hold the key to his indictment. He uses them to break into accounts illegally and withdraw money that isn't even his. We tried spear phishing but he is obviously too smart for that and doesn't keep the numbers anywhere on his laptop. So I want you to try and get yourself invited over to his apartment. I'll leave the details to you. There's a price on his head, Laura, and what I gave you was just..."

"Why do you always think I only care about money?" she interrupted. "When I first met you one word entered my head. Just one word - Byzantium."

"Byzantium?" Halo seemed perplexed. It was an emotion she had never noticed in him before. She had obviously touched a nerve, exposing him in some sort of abstract nakedness.

"I was looking out at the lights. They were pink. And I felt the world open up to me in a way it hadn't since I was a young teenager. I felt something like the sense of awe or reverence you'd get standing in front of some great Orthodox cathedral."

"I never took you as a religious type."

"No. I'm not. But the feelings are always there. Always implied."

Halo cleared his throat. There was a long open silence that yearned to be filled. Then he finally spoke. "I am so sorry to change the topic, but I have an appointment very soon. I'll be in touch next week to see how things are going. As soon as you get the numbers you have to deliver them in person. Since my continued presence in New York might arouse suspicion, I think it is best if you fly into London for the weekend. There are too many people that might get wise."

"London?" Laura repeated with a sense of worried surprise. London was a place that seemed very cold and very far away.

"It will give you a chance to come down to my office and meet my superiors for further questioning. There may be details about Mr. Walden's apartment, or even things he did or said, that may be important. Don't worry about the expenses. I'll send you a ticket when the time comes."

"I'm not sure I can get time off." The image of a royal guard standing at the doors of a vast mountain palace – was it Shangri-La? – entered her mind. She pictured a flaming Ferris wheel illuminating an enormous basin filled with white-domed buildings. Then her mental screen went blank and when it booted up again she thought of the gray paneling in her office and how many appointments she would have to cancel to get away.

"Just look for the Starlight account," he said, completely ignoring her reservations about leaving New York. "Anything with the word 'Starlight' written on it."

"Starlight?"

"Don't worry," he said as though he detected her uncertainty. "We'll manage somehow. We always do, don't we?" There was something cozy and reassuring in his voice that made it seem as though they were old lovers who had been together for years. The image made her feel uncomfortable.

Before she had a chance to respond the line was already dead. She wondered if it had been cut off by some third party who had been listening in all along. Before she had a chance to set down her phone she heard a loud knocking at the door. She tucked it away in a kitchen drawer so no one could easily discover that she had just been speaking to someone from the UK for almost twenty minutes and then went to answer the door. When she opened it Mace was standing there. His eyes were sunken and he had a large pimple on his forehead. He looked like he had been out all night on a binge.

"Whiskey?" she asked, her eyes assuming a "yes".

"No," he said gruffly. "I need something else." He had a look of calm in his eyes that was almost threating in its overt passivity. "Have you ever wondered why people only talk about dreams and nightmares in reference to the experiences they have when they're asleep?"

"What else is there?"

"Aren't dreams always supposed to be positive and nightmares negative?"

"I guess."

"What about dreams that are neither good nor bad? What are they called?" His eyes intensified as his expression hardened.

Laura stepped backwards and let him enter the foyer. She felt for a moment that a certain dread had fallen between them.

"So," she said in a more compassionate tone. "Why so much gloom? Did you meet someone else?" After the words came out she wondered why she had said this. Asking about his pending court appearance seemed like a more obvious and caring thing to do.

"Someone else. Someone fucking else. Was there ever someone else? No. So why should there be now? I just want you to tell me why you were on the phone for so long and who you were talking to."

He had obviously been standing at the door listening all along. He looked sad, almost pathetic, standing there in his leather jacket and studded belt, like a toy action figure biker. His jacket was a prop. His belt was a prop. Mace was a prop. The whole man in front of her was a prop standing in front of someone completely different.

"I'm not cheating on you, if that is what you mean," she reassured him.

"No?" He looked up at the ceiling. "Then why do I smell a new perfume?"

"There's no new perfume. It's your imagination." She didn't remember buying any new perfume.

Mace pushed her aside and started sniffing in a loud, almost dog-like fashion. "I smell something different. It's more floral...no, more musky than what you normally wear."

"It really _is_ your imagination. Maybe it's coming from the neighbor's apartment. They're strange over there. Unless I was dreaming I think they were harassing me the other day. What do you think of that?" Mace ignored her and kept sniffing around the room. "Maybe it's on your clothes," she offered. "Someone could have brushed against you in the pool hall or something."

"Which people?" he asked as though he had not been listening and didn't really care what she said in response.

"They pounded on the wall and then called me up and started asking things about Byzantium. Either they saw me buying a book about it that day and wanted to play a prank, or the whole thing was a dream."

He suddenly stopped sniffing and turned to her. "A dream? A nightmare? Or was it the third kind I haven't found a name for yet?" She just looked at him as though he was a clown and should take of his costume and end his act. "I can't seem to smell it anymore. Maybe you're right. But there's something in those glassy eyes of yours that tells me I scared you. I can feel it. You're hiding something. People rely too much on reason these days. Intuition has to count for something. The great Yoga masters solved the riddles of the universe with intuition. Thinking too much only leads you astray."

"I'm not hiding anything," she said. She crossed the room with slow intent. She had one thing on her mind. She was suddenly all warm and fluid inside.

"Why would the neighbors harass you if they didn't know something was going on?"

"That's the stupidest thing I ever heard. That's what they say about women who are raped. It's always their fault."

"So nothing's going on?" he asked as though requesting some kind of statement of loyalty or promise.

"No."

"No?" he queried in an exaggerated tone aimed at letting her know he still wasn't sure he really believed her. "Then why don't I invite them over for a drink and a game of cards? There's no better way to make up than a bit of socializing. That's what I always thought. People can pretend when they are alone, but when they go out amongst other people, that's when the truth comes out. Everything is about money, image, and blame. No one takes responsibility for anything anymore."

"I guess that's _La vie modern_ ," she said ironically.

He slammed his fist against the wall. Immediately there was a reciprocal slam of equal intensity from the other side of the wall. "Fuck you," Mace yelled, his mouth only inches from the wall. He put his ear against the plaster and waited. There was only silence.

"Mace," she uttered under her breath. She set her hand on his shoulder. "You know I'm not lying, so why are you doing this to me?" Inside she knew she was both right and wrong. She did love him, but she was also hiding something from him. If she let him know about Halo and Gregory, he would never accept it. He would be crushed. The last time he thought she was having an affair he drove his motorcycle into a brick wall in Queens.

"Then let me invite Ray in." He smiled like a pirate who had just played a wild card and with it took the hand.

"Ray?" The image of a thin man appeared in her mind: it was Ray as she remembered him from the last time they met six months ago. He had a white face that looked far too old for his designer jeans and checkered shirt.

"Yes," he said. "He's waiting outside. I told him to come over and visit. You've met him before. He's polite. A real gentleman."

"Waiting outside? So you were both spying on me."

"That's because we were going to drop in on you to surprise you. Just before we knocked we heard you on the phone so we didn't want to barge in. Which brings me back..."

"It was Rajat from work," she said.

Mace still didn't seem convinced. "Ray told me he met you on the street a few days ago and tried to talk to you, but you just walked past him."

Laura couldn't remember having seen him that week, but gave Mace the benefit of the doubt. Ray wasn't the kind of person you would forget. Besides, it sounded like something that could have happened. When she came back from work she was often tired and preoccupied.

Mace walked in a stiffly over to the door - a military commander in a time of great duress, she thought - and opened it. Ray was standing there with a giant subdued grin on his face. He was wearing an old yellow cowboy hat and a pink satin shirt with pearl buttons. His chin was covered in stubble and his eyes had the smoky blue color of the Montana sky. He strode across the room gracefully and tipped his hat. It was a gesture she never encountered in New York, and one she always hated when she lived out west. But somehow in the context it was a welcome reminder of a life that was quickly vanishing from her memory.

"Always a pleasure ma'am" he said. Then he curtsied.

"Ray is a true gentleman," Mace declared with pride.

"Yes," she said. "I can see that."

Ray looked embarrassed like John Wayne might have after spilling a drink on a woman's dress. "I've lived here so long I almost forgot what it was like back west," he said.

"Laura," said Mace in a tone of rebuke. "Aren't you going to offer this fine gentleman something?" He slapped Ray on the back.

"Sure. Well..." She looked around and then gestured to the living room with a single sweeping motion of her arm. "Why don't you take a seat?"

They meandered into the living room and sat beside one another on the couch. Out of the corner of her eye Laura could see Ray giving Mace a quick wink. Then he whispered something into his ear. Mace nodded and seemed to relax. He turned his head around and peered into the kitchen where Laura was already making some coffee.

"Ray says you are telling the truth. He should know, if anyone. He sees things none of us do. It's all those guru books he reads. His eyes are a divining rod. He says you're faithful. He also says he can't smell anything. I was sure I could. I was sure I could smell some kind of perfume. But Ray has never been wrong once. Not in the five years I've known him have I ever seen him wrong." Ray smiled and tipped his hat in the direction Laura and Mace smiled with satisfaction. "Laura is my little jewel," he whispered to Ray. He patted Laura on the head like a schoolgirl at a fair. "Little and pure. She's not big and gaudy like the Hope diamond. When they get too big they look just like prisms in head shops." He looked into Laura's eyes and stroked her cheeks gently. The sparkle in her gaze made him feel safe again, safe from everything that was bad in the world, everything that had dragged him down in the past and prevented him from being the person he really wanted to be.

As Laura walked into the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee Ray smiled a broad and bright bandana smile. "This is some fine apartment you have here, Ma'am. I sure am glad you let me come over for a visit."

His voice had a calming effect on her. She felt herself retreating for a moment from whatever treacherous world Halo had drawn her into. She was more at home now. Mace and Ray were her kind of people. Tünde and Star kind of people. They didn't have designs on her. They didn't want anything from her. Not even Byzantium.

### Chapter 3.7

Gregory wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead and put his squash racket back into the closet. This time he wasn't going to blow it. This time he had her phone number in hand and this time he was going to take full advantage of it. Countless times he had let them get away. Countless times he had even tried to count how many had gotten away ( _that's_ how many had gotten away) while he lay alone at night shivering in bed sipping delicate cognacs to help him drown his sorrows and fall asleep. Counting even the ugliest sheep was preferable to counting the lithe memories of even lither women that he had somehow let go. There was the sweet small Thai princess whose vast symphonic eyes were matched only by her even vaster symphonic lips. Large, voluptuous, almost vulgar in their waterbed weight of sensuality, her mouth burned through his mind deep into the night and even deeper through the years that followed. He could still picture her posing in her deep blue dress, almost too blue in the manner of garishly colored Louis XIV drawing rooms: a bona fide Asian Tinkerbell modeling her tiny figure on some Zen Buddhist alter consecrated by bronze statues of flying tigers and rice paper lanterns, all blazing in the Bangkok dusk. Just looking at her was like swallowing the moon. He met her one night on a freeway in New Jersey. He had rear-ended her car and she stormed out like a dragon from the lair of her small red Datsun hatchback. After a few minutes of vehement argument about the obvious damage to her bumper, she eventually softened her position and admitted that the legalities were something that only a more composed conversation in her parents' restaurant could resolve. She scribbled down the address on a small piece of paper and asked him to meet her there in an hour, once she had time to go home to change. He set the piece of paper on his car seat with the same ceremony he would have undertaken for the final autumn leaf of some dying enchanted tree and then proceeded to charge down the freeway at full speed like a jousting knight in full promenade. Yet all it took was a tiny gust of wind, far more delicate than his new Thai valentine's ginger dumpling breath, to blow the piece of paper out the window and down the gutters of his memory. For days, then weeks, he combed the residential and commercial strips of New Jersey looking for Thai restaurants in hope of finding her again. Thai Gardens, Thai Palace, Thai Heaven, Thai Flower: he tried them all, often going back two or three times to see if she might be there working as a waitress out of loyalty to her family business. But no. That one got away.

So too did many others. Too many. Like tails of comets once seen and quickly vanished behind the starry backdrop, these lost women lit up his imagination for long and aching moments in the sanctuary of his dreams only to fuel endless mornings of self-doubt and despair. The pattern was always the same. He would start to feel like a _glunk_ and a _sloin_ \- two words invented just for him by an unresponsive woman on whom he once had a prolonged crush - and wonder if resigning to _glunkhood_ was worse than admitting _sloinhood_ and why. Discotheques at two a.m. savoring the tang of foreign tongue in his mouth like a swizzle stick from some great ethereal Martini, but somehow no pen. Ballerinas from Budapest dancing with their ivory legs and eyes like white sapphires. Cellists from Chester, their smooth ripe cheeks the color of rice pudding; flautists from Frankfurt, their calm blue eyes alight with the starry palate of some ancient Teutonic mystery; violinists from Vladivostok, hiding the infinite shells of their Matryoshka doll sensuality beneath the seven veils of their Asian love dance: now all just a string of Christmas tree lights to decorate the dark and lonely hallways of his past. Sometimes he thought he could kill the anguish with a handkerchief and a quick trip to the bathroom. It was good for a few hours respite at any rate, but the memories would always come back later to haunt him. When he had finished he could always see their flaws – or at least for those precious first hours before he was once again plagued by his lustful fantasies, he imagined he could. In this temporary state of relief, scenarios would transpire for events that never had the chance to transpire. The Thai princess became just that: a spoiled Asian princess who would have demanded a wedding and full access to his bank account after just their second date. The ballerina had boils on her back and had been abused by her brother and even took to sniffing glue with Arian Nation friends as a means of hiding from her horror. The violinist was a desperate damaged soul who spent too much time on _Instagram_ and stayed home weekends playing on-line Dungeons and Dragons, acting out every last role, from the beastly troll and the wicked witch to the ugly Gorgon and the Black Knight, inside the morbid confines of her bedroom. Yes. He would convince himself as he sat alone in his bathroom, his pants still hanging down from his knees, she would probably turn out to be the type that would gloat about having slept with some rapper icon like Kanye West just because she saw him once in a swimming pool in Nevada. She was crazy. They all were. He was lucky to be rid of them. He was safe. Alone and free. He deserved other women. Better women. Classy women. Women like Laura Chain.

Gregory poured himself a second glass from the bottle of Rousseau's 1969 Chambertin that had been evolving on his desk for the last hour. It was already deep amber at the edge and was clearly loosing its grip. But there was no replacement for a great Chambertin; nothing that would make a woman's panties lighter and more transparent. Just the bouquet was enough to make their clothes float off their bodies and rise to the ceiling. The taste of black cherries and earth with more than just a hint of fresh cream and gunmetal soaring from the glass as you took that last profound dive into its fragrant inky pool. That was Chambertin. A steely sword in a velvet sheath. The hammer of centurion gods and perfume of river nymphs alike, all bundled together in one great apocalyptic sip.

He flicked on his five hundred thousand dollar _Ypsilon_ stereo with a touch of his remote control and listened to Vivaldi. The chorus of wineglass-rim violins was nothing short of transformative, even divine, but he had long ago conceded it didn't matter what the system sounded like, only that he paid five hundred thousand dollars for it and in that regard its performance was truly guaranteed by its price tag and its sound was only a bonus. When the CD ended he picked up his i-phone from his desk and dialed. This time he had her number. This time he wasn't going to screw up. This time he wouldn't be left begging at the door of some postmodern Thai restaurant somewhere in the swamps of New Jersey like some crazed _Versace_ prince looking for his midnight Cinderella.

"Hello," Laura's voice filled his ears like a wind chime.

"Hello," he replied. There was a long pause. What was she thinking? "It's me. From the other night. You know..."

"Of course," she said more enthusiastically. "How could I forget?"

"I was calling to see how you were...or if you might want to go out some time. If you have time, that is."

There was another pause. In the bed of silence he imagined the sound of her breathing came from her small nose pressed up against his cheek.

"Sure," she said. She seemed surprised. In fact, she was. At that very moment she was standing alone in her apartment with only an untied bathrobe draped loosely around her body. Mace had just left. He had come alone this time, apparently convinced that Ray had proven her worth, and they had made love to the rhythm of some zesty Argentine piano music he had just picked up at the local record store. But now she had receded from the world. She had withdrawn from her earthly undertakings. Not opposed to them, just withdrawn.

Gregory stared off into the distance. He could make out a Texaco sign hovering over a carpet of gray and yellow smog like a prayer tower rising from a sea of translucent mirages in some grim forsaken desert. She didn't sound convinced. He tapped his finger nervously on the table.

"I was just shopping today," he said, breaking the silence that had craved to be broken. He didn't know why he said it, he just did. It seemed like a safe, but still exciting thing to say. It was something she would respect him for. He went out and bought his own groceries like a real man, a liberated man who knew how to fix a motorcycle as much as he knew how to cook a sumptuous meal. "I bought some endives." He really didn't. In fact, he had never bought endives. He always thought they were the same as chives but never cared enough to find out for sure. "And some wine." At least he _did_ know about wine. That much was for sure. And she didn't seem to mind men that drank too much.

"Really?" she said, ramping up her enthusiasm a notch. The pleasing spell of Mace's recent visit was finally starting to wear off. "I like rosé."

Gregory had already guessed she was a rosé drinker. Most classy women were. You could tell by the way a woman carried her clutch what kind of wine she drank. Smooth, elegant, seductive, loose. That was the rosé walk. Too stiff and snobby: Martinis all over. Too coarse and pendulous: beer. Completely undistinguished: cheap German white wine.

"I have some pink champagne," he said. "It goes well with endives."

"I bet," said Laura. She laughed. "I can just imagine."

Gregory felt more at ease. "I can make dinner for you," he said. "How about that?"

"I'm not the type that usually..."

"We can just have coffee instead," he retreated. Perhaps he had gone too far and she had taken him for the sort of guy that would come to pick her up on the first date in a black stretch limo to take her back for a swim in his private pool. Coffee would do for now. It was safer and more intellectual. She would see him for his debonair charms and they would discuss literature, horseback riding, and the Latin classifications of wildflowers.

"No," she said. "I mean, 'no' to the coffee. Not that I don't want coffee with you, but it's OK. I didn't mean to turn you down. I can come over. I'm sure you're a good cook."

"Oh," he said. "If that's OK. I don't want to force you..."

"No. You're not. I had a good time talking with you. Dinner is fine. I might have to leave early, though." Seeming too forward might make him think she had a hidden agenda and then she would blow her cover and scare him away. But how forward was too forward with a man like Gregory?

"Well, what about tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow?" She flipped an imaginary date book in front of her, trying to remember if she had anything planned with her clients. It would be OK with Mace. As long as she didn't come back too late she could say it was for business. "That sounds good."

"What about seven?"

"Sure," she said. She was running her hand over her breast in a slow circular motion wondering if it meant she wanted to make love to him. As far as his conscious mind was concerned, she was sure the answer was "no". But what about her unconscious mind? In her waking life it was this part of herself that always lagged behind totally unaccounted for.

She thanked him for calling and they both said goodbye at the same time. Gregory set the phone down in a slow and thankful way. He never could have imagined it would go so well. In fact it had gone so well he was almost suspicious. Did he really want to go out with her that badly? A tide of uncertainty washed over him. What if she wasn't the girl he thought she was? When a girl was too easy it usually meant one of two things: everyone went out with her and you were not special in any way, or nobody went out with her and she was so desperate to have a bit of fun that she would go out with anybody. In the first case she was a cheap slut. A common whore. A woman to party with a few times and then discard, but one you had to wine and dine before you had your way with her. A true call girl was preferable to a woman like this. The second type was one to be pitied and even afraid of, somebody that would cling to you wherever you went and make scenes in public places whenever you turned your attention away from her for just an instant. A woman on the verge, a woman on the brink, but most of all, a woman not to call!

That night he went to bed early, adding a coda to the 1969 Chambertin by pouring himself a small nightcap of Dalwhinie, savoring it like a fine book of poetry while he waited for the empty glass that would signal it was time to finally turn off the lights and drift away into sleep. In the first moments of darkness he felt uncomfortable. He was afraid of what might happen the day after. Laura was either a nobody, or an angel. If she was an angel, then maybe that was even worse. If she was an angel he would fall apart before her higher beauty. Weren't beautiful woman always like that? An incendiary jug of kerosene waiting to go off in some lonely bastard's life. As the darkness folded in on itself to reveal an even greater darkness, deeper and richer in its suffocating dimensions, he was overcome by a feeling that everything would be fine and that he was in control of all things and that life was ultimately good and worth living and that every time he stepped on the wrong path a sign would emerge that warned him it was time to turn back. He felt both heavy and light: a dense red fluid suspended in a lava lamp. It was a deep comforting feeling without boundaries or rules that he wished he could conjure forth at will. In his last moments, he became aware of only one thing: that he was no longer aware of himself or his surroundings except for the sound of an ambulance or police car somewhere in the distance. Then he was aware of nothing. It was a hollow empty nothing, different from the perilous oblivion searched for by heroin addicts and mystics. It was a bland and pleasureless form of nothingness that had no equal in the world. It was a feeling he wished he had never encountered and wished would go away as soon as it came. And then it did. When he next opened his eyes it was light in his room and he had no memory of what had happened after the whiskey and what he had thought or experienced. All he could think about was Laura and what he was going to cook for her that evening.

### Chapter 3.8

Laura unbuttoned her sweater and took a sip of iced Chai latté that she just bought from the Starbucks down the street. She pulled out her laptop and navigated to the _Putlocker_ video streaming page she had bookmarked that morning. _Dishonored_. It was a film she had seen once before, only long ago when she was still in college. She could almost feel the actors shimmering inside her like expectant ghosts hovering inside its intimate world of costume balls and shadowy wartime sets. She had just enough time to watch it before getting ready to go to Gregory's for dinner that evening. The titles began to roll. _Dishonored_. If everything went according to the script, Laura would end up falling in love with Gregory and betraying Halo. She would enter Gregory's life as an imposter but eventually realize that he was really what she had been missing all those years since the death of Johnny Enzyme. Gregory would end up being more than just revenge for Stork. She would take long romantic walks with Gregory through the streets of New York as the raindrops composed the score for their greatest love scenes. They would make plans to trick Halo into thinking she was still on his side. But in the end Gregory would betray her and she would be arrested for being a traitor. Her last breath would fall against a gray wall of concrete as she stood blindfolded before a firing squad, applying a defiant layer of lipstick before taking a long insouciant draw from her cigarette as her final line of defense. But Laura was no Marlene Dietrich. Maybe she could have been five years earlier. But not now. Things were different. Five years ago she would have been a shoe-in with her slender European cigarettes and intricately woven black lingerie. But when she moved to New York everything changed. The Northwest molded you into believing you were clandestine, singular, and inimitable. But when you got to New York you realized how many people were out there trying to do the same boring thing as you. How many people had she met in New York that were just "doing it" whatever "it" was? It made you want to be normal so you could stand out against all those people trying to stand out. It made you feel ashamed for trying to be different and ultimately made you want to give up trying to be anything other than what you were. And wasn't this what it really meant to die?

A thousand questions flickered through her mind as she let the film wash over her. Would Johnny Enzyme have approved and would this complete her coronation as _the first woman of the twenty first century_? Was Gregory really guilty or was she just being used by Halo? How will it affect her comfortable relationship with Mace? And if this wasn't complicated enough, there was _Notorious_ to worry about, a different Mata Hari remake encoded with an alternate future in which Gregory would end up poisoning her in his apartment when he found out she was working for Halo. But just as the priest was about to read her last rights Halo would come to her rescue and they would run off into the sunset together. But was she even an Ingrid Bergman or Halo a Carry Grant?

She clicked the pause button in order to check her e-mail. There were no new messages. She sighed in relief. Over the last five years she had almost come to hate e-mail. In the beginning, _Facebook_ reunited her with Star and her old friends from school, but it eventually became little more than a vehicle to destroy these same friendships by wiping out their sacred past and transforming it to a sequence of broken thoughts and images in the cyberspace present. It was one step further removed from mail or even the telephone, lacking the frank nobility of the written letter and the human warmth of someone's voice on the other end of the line. There was so much room for misunderstanding: a wrongly chosen word, a sentence too short and curt, a "like" that should have come days before but didn't. Those were things you could avoid by telephone or the traditional letter. In allowing the convenience of the telephone in the potentially cold and distant format of the letter, hadn't _Facebook_ combined the worst of both? No one ever really reads all the comments on a _Facebook_ post. But who could say they wouldn't read a long letter? And in a short _Facebook_ comment there was just that much more room for misunderstanding that would easily have been cleared up with further explanation, as in a letter or the reassuring tone of voice in a telephone call.

Five miles away Gregory was standing in the kitchen holding a cookbook in his hand at chest level as though he were about to give a poetry reading. Fish was on the agenda. Fish was clearly in the cards. Why fish? he asked himself one more time to convince himself he had made the right decision. Fish was hardly the most sexy and seductive dish. It wasn't the sort of thing you associated with a thousand and one nights clouded with perfume and tears of love in velvet night chambers adorned with pillows and incense. It wasn't _the thing_ for love. Fish were ugly. You could imagine making love with a woman in a huge bed directly below a ceiling mirror with a pretty blue jay tweeting away in a cage by the lamp. You could even imagine a dog or cat sitting on a nearby chair, watching with estranged curiosity the mating rituals of their owner's species. But you could never imagine sex in front of the refrigerator with a disemboweled sea bass staring at you from a piece of brown paper on the kitchen table. Not unless you belonged in a padded cell.

So, why fish? It was a risky decision, indeed. But cooked in the finest Condrieu with a chestnut and anise puree it was sure to impress. The Apollonian virtues of the white wine would buffer the primeval essence of the fish. The contrast of classicism and hedonism would thereby be established. The advantage over lamb or beef was simply one of weight. That was the main reason and the cornerstone of his strategy. If they ate a heavy red meat dish she would be tired afterwards and would want to sit on the couch and maybe even go home. She would complain of feeling sick and almost bursting at the waist as an excuse to leave early. Fish was light in both the mind and stomach. After dinner it would almost certainly guarantee the possibility of making out energetically on the couch. He envisioned conversations where he would get close to her, fish still light on her breath, and touch her cheek or play with a strand of her hair for romantic emphasis. Such conversations would never happen after consuming a heavy lamb dish. Red meat was for those you wanted to fatten and kill. Sharply bearded conquistadors would invite their worst enemies over for lavish Spanish galleon feasts of venison and mutton, just for the exquisite pleasure of stabbing their fattened bodies from behind during the final desert course before tossing their bodies into the ocean. An Andalusian handshake. And if he and Laura wanted to go out for a romantic walk after dinner to let the wind coax their every desire, they could. Fish would give its nod of approval. They could even go to a disco and dance all night if that was what she wanted. In the final analysis, the ugly sea bass gaping there in front of him emanating its characteristic Atlantic City stench was the best chance he had of striking up romance with young Miss Chain.

It was already four in the afternoon. It was times like this he was especially happy to have a job that allowed him the flexibility of being able to stay at home whenever he wanted. He could always bring work home or cancel a meeting. In this case he had neither. It was a blank day. The kind of day he didn't usually look forward to because of all its holes and emptiness. Too little work was just as bad as too much. When a day had too many holes in it, it lacked substance and became nothing. Holidays were like that. Sundays too. Down on the streets he could hear the sound of increasing traffic flow that signaled the beginning of rush hour. Millions would be out walking the streets: mobile statues carrying folded newspapers under their arms like some twisted echo of the proverbial olive branch or bow. Ants crawling around on a lump of intricately mined dirt, they would go back and forth from home to work, the only real difference between the two locals being whether it was from the shouts of their wives or their bosses that they were hiding.

Gregory set the cookbook down and took a knife out of the drawer with an almost ceremonial sense of grace and equilibrium. He passed its blade over a sharpening stone in a rapid series of smooth arcs and then started filleting the fish. When he was finished he arranged the clean white slices on a plate beside the fridge and threw away the remains. Then he opened the bottle of Condrieu. It was a 1989: a highly regarded vintage he was as yet unfamiliar with. He took a sip, letting its invisible fingers penetrate into the corners of his mouth and massage the back of his tongue. Despite its obvious layers of complexity, there was something green and unfinished about it - a freshly split branch - but maybe it just needed a little time to open up. With an Italian ceramic spice mill he started grinding some anise seeds from a small brown bag on the kitchen table. A teaspoon would be enough. Once the sauce was prepared time seemed to slip into a higher gear and pass by almost unnoticed, a pale mist at dawn. Wild rice. Pearl onions. Red leaf lettuce. Everything but endives. All the ingredients were fresh from the market down the street. He had gone shopping that very morning. At least that much was true.

When everything was finished cooking he set the various dishes in the oven and turned the temperature down to warm and put the salad in the fridge. The dressing could wait until the last minute before the tossing. He washed his hands and retired to his living room. It was five thirty. He had some time to relax and gather himself. He didn't normally put so much effort into cooking, or at least not since he was in grade school. While everyone else was out smoking and stealing he was always at home cooking with his mother. It was a lifestyle that earned him several black eyes and the label of "sissy", but something he was later able to use for sympathy points at university where, to his delight, most women he met were touched by his richly embellished stories of long afternoons at home baking cakes when all of his classmates were out torturing cats and burning library books.

When the buzzer rang Gregory noticed for the first time it was raining outside. He sprang to his feet and punched the reply button with his index finger.

"Hello," he said. He could hear his voice echoing through the speaker.

"It's me," Laura's voice sprang into the air of his apartment. He pressed the open button.

"Come on up," he said with levity.

Silence dropped on the other end with so much expectation it was almost maddening. There was a knock at the door before he had finished coming up with the perfect adjective to describe it. He opened the door. Laura was standing on the threshold wearing a gray wool coat that fell all the way to her ankles. Across her breast were sewn four quarter-sized gray buttons arranged in a square the size of a place mat and she was wearing a small round wool cap. Drops of rain had landed without bursting on the end of each hair, dappling the surface of the wool with small reflective points that glimmered like tiny jewels.

"Please come in," he said. He stepped aside and let her enter the room. "Let me take your coat," he offered. She turned around and he let his hands drop on her shoulders, enjoying the brief moment of contact before she shed the coat into his hands.

"Am I late?" she asked.

"No," was his answer. He couldn't think of anything clever to say in response to such a basic question. "I was just sitting here trying to think of the perfect word for a space of silence that promises more than can ever fit in it."

"Ripe?" she offered. They walked into his living room, passing the dining area on their way. The table was set for two places with deep blue mats and earthenware china. There were two wine glasses per plate.

"I'm not sure if that is the right word. It makes me think of a big tropical fruit bowl. I was thinking of something more mystical. Something possibly even mathematical."

"I was never too good at math, but I do know something about the occult and stuff like that. Just in a superficial way. I have a friend..." She paused and relived what she had just said. She suddenly wondered if the way she had blurted out "stuff like that" might label her as a hayseed girl from the Midwest. It was something she never would have said. Maybe it was stage fright. But she knew enough about eastern mysticism from her conversations with Mace that she could always rebound and impress Gregory with her knowledge.

"The occult? Hmmm. We can talk in a second. Let's sit down first." He beckoned her to recline on the couch in front of them. As she settled into the soft velvet cushions he could see the beginnings of her breasts bursting out like pillars of light from the dark enclaves lurking inside her tight black dress. For the first time he noticed she was wearing blood red stockings that came up to her knees and her hair was tied in two pigtails, each falling gently down to its respective shoulder. The occult. He repeated to himself. There was some kind of magic going on. He could feel it all over.

"It smells good," she said cautiously as she smoothed out the wrinkles of her dress with her hand. "What is it?"

"You'll see. It took all day. You'll love it." The word love echoed in his head as he looked deeply into her eyes. She gazed back into his, but with more of a friendly look of camaraderie than a warm glow of passion.

"I'm sure I will," she said. She stood up and walked around the coffee table. "I like this place. How long have you lived here?"

"Six years," he said. "I did it all myself."

She looked around the room admiringly. In comparison, her apartment was more modern and functional with only a few interesting curios here and there to color it up. Gregory's apartment was more like those she had seen in nineteen eighties films about gay artists in New York who threw big parties, had important friends, and did poppers at nightclubs where they played gothic disco like _New Order_ and _Depeche Mode_. It was a social scene that seemed to have no beginning or end in the span of her lifetime, one she had always been aware of, but only as an observer from the outside. Were chic and decadence timeless qualities that persevered from generation to generation, or was it more that New York was just immune to time?

"You can stay seated, you know," he said jokingly in a way that he thought was breaking the ice. "It's not like the couch has a meter and charges by the minute." Laura sat down again, this time with an ambiguous expression on her face.

"What about Dostoevsky?" he returned to what already seemed an old topic they could joke about together. "I hardly find the time anymore with all my new projects." He thought of dropping a comment about his internet banking project, but decided it was better to leave it as his ace in the hole for after dinner.

"I used to read a lot more. When I was in college I loved Jack Kerouac and Henry James."

Gregory nodded with false enthusiasm. In his literary universe, Henry James conjured images of men with top hats riding around in horse-drawn carriages beside women wearing dresses shaped like inverted tulips that took far too long to tear off in a moment of passion. He had never read any James, precisely for this reason. But he had to concede that such themes were permissible for a woman. It was a good thing. The last thing any man wanted, apart from a woman who didn't like sex, was a wild woman who slept with everyone. Loose women and prostitutes certainly had their place, but they weren't something to try and hold on to. They were like tricycles: fun for a spin, but nothing you'd want your friends to hear about.

"My favorite was always _The Portrait of a Lady_ ," she said. "I think I must have read it six or seven times. There is so much in there. It's like a palace."

"A palace," Gregory repeated. Her eyes were a swirling blue pool. Something to dive into and get lost. A stormy torrent with color and promise on the other side. "Go on. It sounds interesting." Indeed, he was curious. A luxurious palace wasn't the sort of thing he would have associated with James. A palace implied decadent excess, riches, beauty, and endless afternoons of passion with divine nectars flowing from hammered gold vases.

"Yes. So ornate. And complex. You get the feeling he almost writes between or beneath people, weaving through their minds and individual perspectives without ever defining a center." There it was. Chaos. It had finally come back to greet her. It was coloring her every word and thought. "But then he always undermines his characters. Everyone's perspective is ultimately undermined. Isabel Archer thinks she is doing the right thing in turning down two decent, rich men, the kinds of men most women of her time would have married because of social pressures. Then she inherits some money through her cousin's connections and meets an American in Italy who seems to break all the rules. He has no job. He is an unsuccessful artist. Yet he seems to value her for who she really is inside."

"So being unsuccessful is a good thing?"

"Yes. At least in this case. You see Isabel wants to be free from social rules. Her inheritance gives her the freedom to choose out of her heart alone."

"In other words, she picks the loser."

"Wait," she said, laughing. "You're getting ahead of me. Of course he turns out to be a loser. It wouldn't be interesting if he didn't."

Gregory thought about these words for a moment and wondered where he might fit in. Perhaps there was a hidden message in there somewhere, a subtle hint for him to either make an advance or give up altogether and resign himself to just being friends with her.

"Sorry," he said. "From your description it just seemed..."

"Yes, I know. But please let me finish. He isn't so bad because he has a daughter that he appears to love and the mother apparently died a long time ago. It's a potent intoxicant. When a man has a child from a previous marriage it seems to make him more legitimate. It makes a woman more interested in him as it means he must have some sort of substance behind him."

"So what happens?"

"She falls for him and gets married, but then he turns out to be boring and narrow minded and only wanted her money all along so he could go on bumming around Europe for the rest of his life. You feel so bad for her. What's worse, it turns out that the mother of his daughter isn't even dead and was the very woman that introduced Isabel to him and later persuaded her to accept his proposal!"

"My," Gregory lamented. It was hardly the stuff for old priests and men in top hats. It was almost sordid, the kind of stuff you bought in the kind of bookstores that had black plastic curtains on the windows and doors and stayed open till dawn.

"Yes," she resonated. "It is really sad. She felt all along she was choosing the path of female independence and true love when all along she was being manipulated into what turned out to be just another form of the conventional marriage – one in which a talentless Peter Pan marries a bold intelligent woman for no other reason than her money."

"But he is really thinking about his daughter's future, so isn't that noble?"

"In some ways, but not the way he did it. He has the means to support her, but doesn't as he prefers to trot around Italy in big shirts pretending to be more interesting than he really is."

"A person isn't safe from con artists anywhere these days."

"Yes," she said without irony. She looked into his warm handsome eyes with only a semblance of vulnerability. For that moment it didn't matter who he really was, only that he was an oppressor of the poor, a miserly sissy of a Ken doll and financial conspirator, soon to be the victim of Halo and her revenge on Stork. She felt unusually cold and emotionless, the engine of some dark fatalistic prophecy. They moved to the dining area and Gregory decanted a bottle of 1982 Margaux into a crystal flask capped with a diamond-shaped stopper. The deep red-black fluid glimmered like an unearthly jewel.

"I always like looking into a wine," he said. "The colors are strange. Almost too deep to be real. Not that I'm a medium in an executive's garb, but it really can be uplifting."

"And I suppose you can even tell the future," she asked. She took a seat at the table.

"Yes," he said. "That one is easy."

"So, what does the rest of the night hold?" she asked.

_That's enough_ , thought Gregory. Suggestive remarks like that should have been made illegal a long time ago. There she sat with her pretty little pout, the red of her lips and the red of her blood a natural reflection of the titillating crimson fluid hovering in the flask. What could he do to defend himself?

He held the wine up to eye level. "Hmmm. Adventure, intrigue, excitement..."

"Come on, can't you do better than that?" she interrupted.

"OK. I'll let you try." He handed her the bottle.

"I see much more," she said. "I see days spent growing old. But this isn't an old age of weakness and desperation, but one of gradual numbing and loss. An old age of closing down, and shrinking away from the world."

"Perhaps you're looking too far ahead. Maybe you should set the clock back fifty years to this evening."

Laura burst out laughing and set the flask down. "I don't know why I said that. I was just feeling giddy, I guess."

"Freudian slip," Gregory quipped. I wish I could see your slip, he thought. Or I'd like to slip in bed beside you. Slip it in. That's right. Slip, slip, slip, it was such a wonderful word to repeat while basking in her presence.

"Maybe you're right. I was always afraid of growing old. Because old people always seem to close themselves off to new ways of thinking. That's much worse than losing your beauty."

Gregory resisted saying something like "that will never be a problem with you," although he was thinking it. He walked into the kitchen and took the food out of the oven, all the way mesmerized by her lips as he continued to wonder whether she was wearing a slip or not. If she was, he definitely wanted to undo her slipknot and unravel her secret box of slippery charms. His mind flipped back to the image of a ravishing model he witnessed in front of _Saks_ that morning bending her wire-doll figure into a dozen impossible poses while the photographer's assistant held up a white reflector the size of a jousting shield. They said in Manhattan you were always twenty feet away from a rat, but what they didn't tell you was that you were also always twenty feet away from a great screw. He listened to Laura whistling softly in the living room, imagining that the evening was a great mythic beast ready to swallow him whole in its wet and greedy jaws. In which of its myriad warm velvet stomachs would he lie sleeping when the day was gone, and more importantly, would she still be there beside him?

### Chapter 3.9

Laura took another fateful sip of the seductive red fluid in her glass and closed her eyes, allowing the peacock's tail of flavors to cascade across her tongue and beyond, into as yet unnamed regions of her being. Truffles. Marzipan. Underbrush. Wet Earth. Apocalypse. She was suddenly in a sports car with Johnny Enzyme flying through the rain as they rounded twisting hairpins, the asphalt glimmering with the reflection of a thousand stars as they wove madly through the dark chasms of the night. She reached out to clutch his hand and knew once again that everything was going to be OK. At long last, everything was going to be fine. She opened her eyes to the image of Gregory leaning towards her on the sofa.

He took his glass of wine and nudged its wet rim up to Laura's lips. Laura tilted her head back and Gregory charted the arc of her neck with the base of his wine glass. Wine always made the world appear infinitely good and profound. But only good wine. Bad wine was the opposite. It was an iron gauntlet choking the last gasps of life from a dry and helpless moment. Gregory stared into her eyes. They glowed in the candlelight like two small pools in the desert night. He sensed from the wine's hidden telepathy that she was feeling the same as he was – flying in an imaginary red sports car with her scarf trailing wildly in the wind.

"You're a very good cook," she said. "Maybe fish is a symbol of Christ, after all. I feel like I've been touched by a divine finger, for lack of better words."

His eyes traced her slim vertiginous figure as she consumed the last morsels of fish on her plate, quietly contemplating their delicate white layers as they melted away on her tongue. "I thought red meat would be too heavy. But I didn't take you for a vegetarian, so I didn't have much choice."

"Very perceptive. I never did like red meat."

"I can tell by how a woman dresses. It's quite simple. Those that wear sandals and have their hair in fairly simple styles are usually vegetarians. Those who wear cowboy boots and tight jeans are meat eaters. And those who..." He paused, wondering how far he could take it. "And women who wear socks up to their knees and have big luscious lips..."

She smiled demurely, but in a way that suggested she knew what the effect of this smile would be and was satisfied with herself because of it. He smiled back.

"Just a second," he said. Then he stood up and walked to the bathroom.

When the door closed Laura set her fork down and took a furtive stroll around the apartment. There were bookshelves, desks, and small statues and curios. It was sparse and neat, but executed with a fine artistic touch. She wondered if he had done it himself or if he had just hired an interior decorator like most rich people would. Stork hired someone to do everything for him, so why not Gregory? At first glance there didn't seem to be any conspicuous sequences of numbers anywhere, but that was to be expected. More than likely such information would be hidden inside an envelope with the name of the account written on the front. Starlight. That was the word she was looking for. She picked up an opium weight in the shape of an elephant from the top of a bookshelf.

There was a sudden tap on her shoulder.

"It's from Indonesia," Gregory whispered from behind her. She put it down quickly and turned around. He was close, very close, and her breasts brushed against his chest as she completed her motion to face him.

"It's beautiful," she said with unease. He was looking into her eyes the way most men do when they are getting ready to make an advance. She folded her arms across her breast and turned away. But it wasn't because she was afraid of getting caught alone with Gregory, nor was it because she was uncomfortable when men came on too strongly. It was because she had a feeling inside she couldn't explain or deny. The man standing in front of her was no better than Jason Stork, and just like Stork, he had a power of attraction that touched her from the depths and made her knees quake. He stepped back and the feeling intensified, filling her up like warm brandy as it spread outwards, massaging every extremity of her being.

"Dessert?"

"Yes," he said promptly, as if to signal that he noticed her reluctant body language and respected it.

They walked in silence back to the table. Gregory stopped for a moment and then continued to the kitchen. Laura took her seat and picked up her now empty wine glass. There was a translucent red spot at the base where there was once a dark red liquid. Everything, it seemed, eventually vanished.

"Do you think it's possible to love a single person for their entire life?" she asked. There was something about the saturated tint of the wine residue at the bottom of her glass that made her feel she was in Rothko's cathedral staring at a strip of red paint.

"Of course," said Gregory. He hadn't been able to love the same woman for long, but it seemed like something worth striving for rather than condemning. But in the warm evening light it seemed that maybe Laura could be the first.

"What about hatred?" she asked. "What role does hatred have?"

"In general, or just in my life?"

"In general. If you think that everything has a purpose, then you have to wonder why we hate. If you are a biologist you might say we hate to protect ourselves from exterior threats."

"And we love to protect our offspring?"

"Yes. That's what a biologist would say, isn't it?"

"And what would a terrorist say - like those freaks from Boko Haram?"

"That hatred is the road to liberation? That the more enemies we hate and destroy, the closer to God we are?"

"I wouldn't know," he said. He stepped out of the kitchen with two bowls of chocolate mousse. It was light but amorous, just the thing to get her in the mood for love. The dopamine would wave its magic wand and the small amount of caffeine from the chocolate would help perk her up and give her that extra boost. It would be the final tile in his mosaic of seduction.

"It looks lovely," she enthused. She took the bowl from his hands and had a spoonful in her mouth before Gregory had sat down. It was dense and layered, its cool dimensions of flavor already resonating in her mouth. In all its richness it somehow maintained a sense of weightlessness, vanishing like a butterfly behind a tree as it melted away on her tongue.

Gregory took a spoonful. Its delicacy was almost too much to bear. The texture was like that of a woman's skin. He put his spoon down carefully and looked across at Laura.

"What are you thinking?" he asked. He thought he knew what he was thinking but had to check to make sure.

"Numbers," she said. Her mind was so riveted on the task at hand that she somehow let it slip out. Gregory arched his eyebrow quizzically.

"That's a non sequitur if I ever heard one."

"I meant to say, or ask rather, what is the perfect number?" The question was more on topic. More mystical. More sexual. More like the color of the spot on the bottom of her glass. Each person had a different answer and their answer told you what kind of person they were. Gregory was a "two" person, she guessed. He was focused largely on sex and unity. There were "one" people, but they always turned out to be complete jerks who only thought of themselves. Often they were politicians, actors and artists, only faking when they said they cared, but somehow able to seem like they cared more than "two" people ever could. Stork was a "one" person and at first she thought Gregory was "one" too, but not a "one" "two" as that would actually be a "three". "Three" people were more rare. They believed that perfection could only exist in the event of three forces, like the trinity. Two just wasn't enough to make things interesting. People of even greater multiplicities existed, but they all had different reasons for loving the numbers they did.

"Three," he declared boldly. He planted his hand on her leg and smiled. "Me, you, and us."

"Now that's original," she said. But she had heard it before. Maybe it was in Penn Station from one of the thousands of businessmen that passed through every day with a copy of the _Rolling Stone_ rolled up under their arms like a symbol of their eternal (dying) youth. But whether it was the look in Gregory's eyes - bold, yet somehow unsure - quivering behind his wall of strength as though he was almost afraid of her but didn't want to show it, or the color of the red spot glowing from within its tiny fairy ring of enchantment, she felt truly sexual before him for the first time since they met. Stork. It must have been the wine, but his slightly pale and vulnerable face made her think of the first time Johnny Enzyme took her hand and kissed it. He was drenched in sweat after performing in a small basement club in Portland. She could still remember the reflection of the hot white stage lights off his red satin top during the performance, and how up close she realized it was the sweat and not the satin that made it shine so much on stage. It gave him a glimmer of weakness and humility beneath his glib stage persona. Standing before Gregory for that instant she felt the same: possessed. The feeling was so intense she suddenly wondered what her purpose was in workaday life. Did she belong to a cause? Did she owe anything to Halo or Mace? Even if she did, it seemed that she had already paid them too much.

"You're just saying that," he broke the silence. "You must have heard it before." The words came out automatically, flowing out of his mouth like tiny leaves riding the greater current of some vast almighty river. And the undertow was Laura. He tried to imagine her naked. Her warm sculpted breasts, white and red in concentric rings, and the enslavement of the curves of her body. It was an awkward metaphor, but that didn't change the fact that it was a form of enslavement. Sinuous curves, gentle curves, pear-shaped curves: these were all tired expressions that said nothing of the infinite power of her fleshy white parabolas.

"No," she said. She put her hand on his and let it rest. She had to be cautious. She reminded herself of Stork and how he had dumped her so mercilessly that day in front of the Chase Manhattan Bank, walking by her with his arm around another woman as though she just wasn't there. "No," she said again. But she really was saying _yes_. _No_ , in this case, did not quite mean _no_. It meant something else. It meant a golden and diaphanous _yes_. "Can we go and lie down on the couch?" she asked softly, but seriously. She heard the sound of a train outside. It was a soft, but textured sound that framed the moment before it faded off into silence. It made her think of all the people on whatever train it was passing by and how they had all ended up together by chance. The whole world was chance. Whatever happened that night occurred outside the boundaries of accountability, beyond all scrutiny and doubt. Johnny Enzyme was both gentle and evil, delicate and savage, a pale archduke of passion sent down to lift her from her misery into an eternal realm of bliss and sensuality. And so too was Gregory. He was handsome and vulnerable, yet also completely evil because he was full of blame, like Stork, a financier and fraud and maybe even the very same person who was pressing charges against Mace.

"Yes," he said. He must have been peering into the folds of her mind that very instant. She imagined the word yes towering over a cartoon landscape, a place like New York, only adorned with copper turrets and soaring minarets penetrating deep into the noble azure sky. Byzantium.

Gregory took her hand and escorted her out into the living room as though onto the dance floor of a Baroque palace. As they walked past the telephone, her eyes caught the name "Starlight" loosely scribbled down on a piece of paper in large shaky letters next to a series of numbers on a corkboard. It registered in her mind as it should have: an electronic billboard posting a hollow victory. He gently pushed Laura further into the living room and down on his couch. In a second they were a tangle of limbs and hair, yet they were strangely still, almost as though the anticipation of union was greater than the union itself. The presence of another person in such close proximity made the borders of the self completely meaningless.

"Do you think people spread out beyond themselves?" Laura asked. She could feel the warm stream of air from his nose brushing against her forehead. He was suddenly everything that she had always lacked, and hence desired to possess. She inhabited another world altogether, one in which she had never met Mace or even Johnny Enzyme. It was a rich narcotic world filled with infinite rewards, but one she wasn't sure she belonged in.

"Do you mean in a mystical way?"

"No," she said. "It just feels strange being up against another person. It is like entering another world and forgetting everything you care about when you are alone."

Gregory wasn't exactly sure what she meant. His laws were physical. Hers were spiritual. It wasn't a stereotype. Not really. But then it was. She was from Venus and he was from Mars. Not quite that either. That was too simple for Laura. Too easy. How much older she looked than most of the women he had been with before. But older in a sense of maturity and depth of beauty, like an old painting that gains new meaning with every subsequent artistic and social movement, and not in terms of decay. Sure there were lines on her forehead and much more subtle lines creeping away from the sides of her eyes like tiny streams. But each of these lines in isolation told a story, each of these lines was sexy. Each of these lines made him just want her all the more. Young women had seamless Velveeta tans and voices like singing chipmunks. Young women liked your attention more than they liked you. Young women were all imposters of love, following all its laws on the surface, but only as a matter of course and not out of any internal necessity other than the desire to be more admired by men than were their friends. Yet maybe this was because he had grown older without even realizing it. Maybe these were the thoughts of an old has been. When he was younger he just couldn't do with older women. They scared him with their serious eyes and cold leather brief cases. Maybe he had changed. With Benny wasn't it just a matter of a few quick strokes followed by a trip to the shower?

"I think I'm going to learn to love every bit of you," he said with a sigh. "When I was younger I think I didn't understand women." This was, in fact, just a few weeks ago, but there was no way he would ever let her know. "I was scared of them. But now I can feel all of you. Your skin, your eyes, your mind."

Laura didn't reply. She just pressed her lips up against his and closed her eyes, allowing herself to descend into the darkness. For what followed she felt as though she were an impartial observer standing on a hill watching the lead up to a porno film she had no control over. She took her clothes off one item at a time, carefully, as though in a trance. Her breasts trembled as they moved in curtailed dove-like swoons, suggesting endless strata of yoga sects beneath them, and her nipples were objects unto themselves: two copper moons orbiting the greater celestial bodies of her eyes. When she was down to her underwear she suddenly felt cold. Even with Gregory draped around her like a coat, she was still shivering. A pink light flashed in her head. A neon sign on the turnpike of her soul flashed like a fireworks display on the horizon. Byzantium. She shook her head back and forth to the rhythm of the pink light. Byzantium. Always Byzantium. That was what it meant to be _the first woman of the twenty-first century_ : to lack all conviction and yet to tread with brazen confidence towards the very limits of experience. Wisdom and morality trounced to bareness before the grim circus of chaos and idiocy.

"Gregory," she uttered. He was sweating and trying desperately to pull off his sock, the last item of clothing blockading his total nakedness.

"Just a second. I'll be ready in a second."

"No," she said. A switch flicked off inside her.

"No what?" He looked at her as though braced for an impending disappointment.

"I mean, yes. Yes, I need some Motrin. I forgot to tell you, I'm having some cramps and I left my Motrin at home."

"Well," said Gregory with the hardy enthusiasm of a plumber assuring a single mother that he had all the answers to her sink problems. "I guess I'll just have to put this other sock back on and go and get you some."

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Just stay there. You look too lovely to wrap up again in clothing and send off to the drug store. Besides, I know the neighborhood and you don't."

"That's kind of you," she said. "I don't want to make it seem I'm not into all of this. I am. You're lovely. I just don't want to ruin everything by screaming in pain when we should be..." She paused out of discretion and let her thoughts drop. In silence she watched Gregory whip his clothes on and spring out the door.

"I'll be back. Just a minute. It'll only be a minute," he said.

Laura experienced a bleak form of patriotism as she slowly dressed. Patriotic towards whom? That was the question. She had once loved Stork, so why not Gregory? Even if Halo was all wrong and Gregory was a modern day Robin Hood stealing from rich multinational companies in order to give anonymously to third world charities, he was still guilty. Everyone knew it wasn't the medieval days anymore and whenever you stole from the rich, they just got a massive check back from their insurance company and the average man on the street had to suffer. The rich were smarter than they used to be. They just got richer when you stole from them by gouging even more out of the poor. Economic sanctions in South Africa and Iraq proved that. It's always the poor that suffered. Trickle down economics was just the rich pissing on the poor and nothing more. And the bottom line was Gregory should know better.

When she did up her last button she went over to the phone where the sheet of paper she had seen was still standing in plain view on the corkboard to which it was pinned. While his finely decorated apartment and lavish culinary skills suggested more than just a hint of elevated sensibilities, it wasn't enough to acquit him before the silvery light of the moon and its midnight jury. She wrote the numbers and letters down on her palm with a pen from her purse and then grabbed her coat. The task seemed so simple that it had to be a set-up of some sort. Or maybe being a spy was really that easy. Easier than it was for Ingrid Bergman in _Notorious_ at any rate. There were no slow acting poisons to make her wither away in the bed of a Nazi war criminal as he planned further atrocities with his colleagues downstairs, and there were no soldiers in disguise dropping by periodically to check her loyalty.

She stepped out into the hall and just before she closed the door she knew she had forgotten something. She felt naked and small, the way she felt in dreams where she was sitting on a bus after just realizing she left her clothes back in her closet. Something inside was warning her. She stopped and mentally retraced her steps. Nothing. Then she let her internal camera roll all the way back to when Gregory was pressed up against her on the couch. The smell of his skin, almost sweet like saddle leather, was still sharp in her mind. She couldn't just leave without saying something. It wasn't nice. It just wasn't decent. It was the sort of thing James Bond might do, but James Bond wasn't even a real person. He was just the creation of a male writer who probably didn't get enough action outside his boring marriage. Laura, on the other hand, was human. Or at least she hoped she was. She needed an excuse. Leaving behind the scent of her perfume or a lock of hair was just too cliché. It wasn't sincere. It was like something from a Justin Bieber video. Something from someone else's life.

She quickly stepped inside the door and made her way through the labyrinthine darkness back to the couch. She turned the lamp on beside her and took out a note pad from her purse. She always carried a note pad. It was a necessity in the advertising world.

Dear Gregory,

I'm sorry for this, but things are going just too fast for me. I really like your company and would like to see you again. Thanks for dinner.

Sincerely,

Laura

It was simple, but it said it. In business you never burned your bridges, so why in life? She shut off the lamp and hurried out the door. When she got down to the ground level she nodded cordially to the concierge and quickened her pace out into the street. Running into Gregory would be embarrassing if not catastrophic. There was a balmy wind and the thick air almost smelled sweet. A cab eased around the corner and she put up her hand. In moments she was travelling at a comfortable speed, the traffic lights a blur in the corners of her eyes, the memory of the evening still burning in her head like a sunlamp. When she got home she copied the string of numbers and letters from her palm to her notepad, wondering why she hadn't done so in the first place. It would have been the more sensible thing and if she had gotten nervous she could have sweat the numbers off her skin. Then she would have failed and would have had to go back a second time to get them. That would hardly have been an auspicious debut as a Mata Hari. In her life she had never done anything brilliantly, except perhaps making men fall in love with her, but had always done whatever she had done at least _very well_. It was a track record she wanted to keep intact.

A siren wailed in the distance and she felt the world move inside her. All the crashing whispers of the night, the blinking snakes of neon and blinding wash of headlights wove with her memories to become one massive symphony of love and hate booming through her soul to the metronomic beat of the clock on her kitchen stove. And from the circumference of her thought an ambiguous voice whispered to her. It could have been Jason Stork, or even Johnny Enzyme. It said that she didn't deserve such a symphony. And it kept on saying this, as though in chorus. She was cheap and duplicitous, the tool of her own revenge and the instrument of a suspicious police investigation. What was Halo even doing in the US? Why hadn't she asked to see his badge and what was there about Gregory that the FBI couldn't handle? She had to get back to Mace. If he ever found out he would certainly forgive her. He was the only one who'd understand. But why should she care what Mace thought? He had never told her why he went to jail the third time, so wasn't she entitled to a secret of her own? As she drifted off to sleep she pulled her pillow closer to herself, seeming to need the security of a second body, even a dead cotton mass, to convince her she was right.

## BOOK 4

### Chapter 4.1

The room shuddered as a train passed outside the window. John Halo picked up an AK-47 from the table in front of him and aimed it at the ceiling. It was much heavier than it looked, conveying a comforting sense of power and oblivion: a sine wave of destruction. Security around the building was not what it should have been, but paradoxically this was not such a bad situation. Intelligence was trained to trace people who used the most covert - and therefore the most unusual and conspicuous - techniques to communicate. They never knew what to do when you just met somewhere and talked. Their meddling networks of satellites and surveillance cameras were only trained to pick up _suspicious_ activities. What the authorities never figured out was that the most dangerous people were never suspicious. They just walked by you and dropped a casual comment about the Queen's latest speech or the day's football scores. A man with a concealed weapon could easily be spotted electronically and disarmed, but a man whose hands were a weapon couldn't, and rarely could he ever be picked out of a crowd. The system was entirely powerless against such people. That was what really got to the authorities. Intelligence was always looking for fanatics and agitators but was blind to the real dangers in the world: the common man.

Halo stared down the barrel of the AK-47. It had all the classical virtues of symmetry, harmony, and an almost mathematical control of form. It was a sublime balance between the Apollonian attention to composition and the Dionysian worship of complete and utter chaos. It was a tool of wanton massacre: the altarpiece of uprising in Chechnya; the weapon of choice of ISIS; a harbinger of revolution and destruction, built with the chaste austerity of the Delphic Oracle.

A slouched man wearing an olive beret walked into the room and thrust his arms widely above his head as though saluting the end of a great symphonic passage. He let his arms drop to his side and wandered slowly into speech. "There are more where that one came from. Five hundred of them, I think. And we also have contacts. Just think...all the heroin and cocaine you could ask for. All we need is the money."

"Drugs are for visionaries and vagrants," Halo proclaimed dismissively. "But in the final analysis the two are the same. Vagrants always fall prey to their own vices and visionaries are too wrapped up in their own delusions to ever present a measurable threat. Neither type ever makes a difference."

"Sure," the man said with a peaceful air that suggested he was happy to accept whatever Halo said and had no particular leanings, expectations, or disappointments. Halo found the attitude appeasing, but only because it was compliant. In many ways it could also be taken as strange, or even untrustworthy. How could a person pretend to have no hopes in life and accept whatever he got?

"Very good, then." Halo swept his hair back and set the AK-47 down. "We will have the funds in place soon. I have a special agent working in America for us."

"Are you sure he's trustworthy?" The man sucked in his stomach and righted his posture.

Halo looked out the window as though he was observing someone walking in the distance. He was trained in slight of hand to make it look like he was thinking of one thing or paying attention to something else when he was really doing or thinking about something completely different. It was a guard. When you worked for the MI6, you could never be too careful. That was why it was best to get civilians to do all the real work for you. That way the authorities never knew what you were up to and even if the civilian agent somehow got caught, he or she would never be able to tell anyone why he was really doing whatever it was he had been doing.

"We should do well," Halo replied vaguely. "The MI6 is very helpful. It works well for us."

"We don't want crime," the man added as though seeking reassurance. He massaged his index finger back and forth in the palm of his other hand in such a slow and rhythmical way it almost seemed mournful. "We only want freedom. When our liberation from the EU is complete I hope for a world without crime, a world filled with strong, healthy, honest - even pious - men who patrol the streets in order to aid those who are too weak to help themselves. A police force devoted to nurturing the public rather than punishing them. What a beautiful world it will be."

"A dictatorship of kindness," Halo reflected. "But if we all strove to be perfect citizens, we would all be exactly the same. That's because absolute perfection has only one form. Likewise with complete abjection. Zero has only one value. So it is our lot to muddle about between the pinnacle and the abyss...it is the only way we have to stamp our individuality on the universe." He picked up the AK-47 and pointed it out the window. A bird flew by and he lowered the gun. Then he looked pensively at the floor. "Death is always sad in its first approximation. After I shot my first man, I was sure I was morally damaged for life. Even though he took the first shot and was wanted for rape and murder, I felt tainted and was sure I would live under a shadow forever. But eventually - after much suffering and confusion - out of all the months of darkness, a flower bloomed inside me. I saw that death was little more than another option in life – sometimes even the best option. Man values life far too much and has yet to learn the true place of death in the world." He pushed the barrel of the gun into the floor as if it was a walking stick required to balance a portion of his weight. "Whenever I was forced to kill, it was always a situation in which I had no other choice, and it was always in the name of justice. Whether it was members of the IRA infiltrating the London drug scene, militants tied to some kind of revolutionary cause, or just plain murderers or pimps. All in the name of justice. And that's what lifts death to a moral level. That's what makes it little more than just _another choice_."

The man across the room smiled as though he was expecting an imminent windfall. Then he spoke. "But what good is justice if it is only for the few, those few that are wealthy enough to reap its rewards? I dream of a world in which criminals are rewarded with special therapeutic attention from doctors and social workers. Sanitariums and spas rather than jails and guillotines! It is only the privileged that have the luxury of moral behavior, as morality is only that sets of rules established by those in power to stay in power and save them from the threat of the poor and oppressed. Even religions eliminate their enemies by rewriting their holy texts to suit their own agendas. Just look at the Catholic Church. A witch was any widowed woman that had land or riches that the church coveted. Quite ironic, isn't it? Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's..."

"Yet is the Maoist cause any better? Doesn't Maoism just seek to conquer and destroy anything that stands in the way of its ascent to power? The only difference is that it is the words of a politician that are made holy, rather than those of a holy man. But wasn't Christ just a very good politician? What makes a religious doctrine more sacred than a doctrine written by, say, Franco or Pol Pot? In the end no matter what you side for, you become a hypocrite. The only way you can be free and pure is to side with no one but yourself."

The man took a small cigar out of his left shirt pocket and lit it with a disposable lighter. He blew a perfect smoke ring and watched it as it expanded in equal proportions across the room like a sonar signal from an imaginary submarine.

"Justice is a form of love," stated Halo. "You have to review it every day. You have the option every morning of leaving your wife, but you make the conscious decision to stay because it is the best choice. If you deceive your wife, then you run the risk of having her find out and leave you. Once this happens your new lover may turn out to be someone different than you thought and even not so interested in you any more. Then you have nothing. Yet if your wife is so unbearable that you are better off alone, then it is best to suck in your feelings and burn bridges with her completely. Good and evil shift like sands in an hourglass. As the sands flow downwards they fold and turn as grains from the bottom are funneled to the top in a series of small eddies and undertows. There is no absolute foundation. I call this view _moral roundness_. What is good is relative, or rather being good to all people from all persuasions is the ultimate path to purity, even if these people are all enemies of each other. The man who is loyal to only one religion or cause is doing nothing but limiting himself and therefore committing the greatest sin of all. That of self-annihilation."

The man smiled and blew another smoke ring in the air, yet this time it formed an aborted egg shape, commanding his attention for a moment before he spoke. "I have to go," he said suddenly. He produced an envelop from his pocket and fanned it in the air. "Thanks for the advance. I have to be in Brussels tomorrow. I'll be in touch."

"I'll be waiting for you."

The two men shook hands and the visitor walked out the door, the cigar still hanging defiantly from his lips. Halo wondered what the man was like as a child and what it was that had made him turn to gun running. Why also did he have an almost pathological desire to protect criminals as though they represented some new class of persecuted saints? Anyone could see that a new world order was emerging led by countries like Russia in which there would only be two classes: the billionaire and the slave. All one could do is stand back and watch its birth and the accompanying deconstruction of the state with the same cool objectivity as a scientist observing the emergence of a new apex predator; to oppose such Darwinian necessity would be immoral. For Halo, religion was quite simple: it was defined around the individual and the betterment of his situation. The church defined it in terms of the betterment of the church, so why not the individual in terms of his own betterment? Didn't that make everyone a potential walking temple of worship? Pledging yourself to a higher cause invariably meant relinquishing some of your decision making power to whoever it was that led the cause. If you were a Catholic, you answered to the Pope. If you were a Maoist you answered to Mao. Belief always entailed giving up your mind and individuality. It was only by siding with nobody that you attained spiritual perfection. And that was moral roundness. As a young man he had been a soldier in Bosnia, assiduously studying the great tomes of Logical Positivism while lying down in the forest for days on top-secret sniper mission. As a mature adult he was first an investigator for the Scotland Yard before moving up to the MI5 and finally the MI6. And as a middle-aged man, all his influences had come together: the soldier, the philosopher, and the law enforcer. The disparate components of the intellectually curious but obedient youth had been welded together into a seamless whole. Every aspect of his self was equally represented at the lofty round table of his soul. He set the gun down on a sea trunk near the wall and listened to the man's footsteps as they faded away down the alleyway.

Later that afternoon Halo ventured out to an Internet café in Earl's Court. There were few of them left these days, but it was a part of his standard strategy to avoid detection. He never used the same terminal twice and rarely went to the same café. He took a seat in the far corner, next to a small white-haired man engrossed in a computer game whose objective seemed to be destroying an army of giant ants equipped with laser-firing space helmets. The man had a small pugilistic mustache, like that of a mid-career police officer. A waiter walked by and the man ordered a cup of tea and a scone. The waiter nodded and brought him the tray a few minutes later. Halo typed in his password and accessed his e-mail account on Google Chrome. If he tried to use Tor to evade detection he could be accused of accessing the Dark Web in order to partake in some heinous criminal activity like the organ the trade or child porn. Contrary to what most people thought, it was safest to only have one e-mail address and use standard browsers. Criminals always used multiple e-mail accounts and myriad false identities. Nobody ever suspected the common man with only one address.

He entered Laura's e-mail address and squinted as he focused his gaze on the screen. She was a good person who shared many of his traits. She was an individual who enjoyed going against the grain just for the act in itself. He was lucky to have such an unwitting sub-agent on his side. She was bound to do a quick clean job and was clever enough not to get caught.

Dear Laura,

Regarding our last conversation I will send you an air ticket in the mail so you can come to England. This is of course assuming that you are still available and that you extracted the required information. I will call tomorrow night. Please plan to be home at seven PM your time.

Sincerely,

John Halo

The message was simple enough that no one would ever suspect it meant something if they managed to intercept it. The key was to leave out any combination of key words that could be picked up by the CIA or any other investigators. That was always a mistake. They had ways of tossing nets across the vast ocean of the Internet and homing in on anything that seemed even remotely suspicious. No covert form of communication was really safe. Not even face-to-face, especially if you were meeting in an unusual location. All it took was a man with a shotgun mike to blow the cover. That was why special agents always had to move and change their location and method of contact. That was why double and even triple agents were always the most successful. They knew all the techniques on the table and exactly what everyone else was doing and how many agents and what facilities were available for deployment on any given mission. It was the art of being a raindrop in a thunderstorm while still retaining your individuality so you could strike when it was most crucial.

He looked at his watch and then hit the "send" button on the computer. It would be late in the workday in New York and Laura was probably already at home. He walked up to the young man behind the cash register and paid for using the terminal. Then he wandered out into the streets of London, already blending in with the crowd before he was even half a block away. One pigeon never stood out amongst others, so why should it be any different for humankind?

### Chapter 4.2

When Laura got home it was almost three. Her hair was heavy, flattened against her head from its own sebaceous weight, and her joints ached. She tossed her purse on the kitchen table and kicked her shoes off into the living room. The air in her apartment was dry and stale, a condition that only exacerbated her overall sense of wear. She felt dirty and cheap. Everything in her apartment reminded her of Mace and how she had just betrayed him. She parted the curtains to take refuge in the warm purr of city lights outside. The pink neon sign kept winking as though in subtle mockery of everything she thought she once stood for. What would Halo think if he could look into her heart, as if from the outside of a frosted window, and see those feelings, which had momentarily stirred inside her for Gregory, now just a snowy flicker of a boson's path inside her? And what would Gregory do if he found out she was stealing information that might eventually lead to his arrest and ultimate incarceration? She was a triple deceiver, quadruple even, as she was even deceiving herself by allowing the whole fiasco to continue.

She collapsed on her bed and lay there flat in complete silence for almost an hour, without once readjusting her figure to a more comfortable position. As she stared into the Coney Island darkness of her room she tried desperately to vanquish the wild tumultuous ride of the present by imagining she was that little girl again lying alone in bed deep into the night thinking about mysterious continents and hidden lands, places like Afghanistan and all its warring tribes: the Pashtuns with their darker skin and shiny black turbans that looked like miniature automobile tires resting on their heads; the Tajiks with deep Egyptian Eyes and small colored fezzes; and the Uzbeks with their pale flat faces and slanted eyes, like direct descendants of Attila the Hun. Back then Afghanistan was a vast fairytale landscape, a fecund garden of the imagination. But one day the Soviet tanks came along and changed everything. The cold dark monsters crawled in from the snowy plains to the north and laid waste to everything in their path. And then came the missile launchers. She remembered watching a TV newsreel showing a bearded man, wearing a long white robe and a turban as though the leader of some obscure Tibetan religion, firing a missile from his shoulder at a Soviet chopper. The helicopter blew up in a brilliant ball of flames and the man just turned to the camera and smiled a broad and pious smile, like one you might have seen on the face of the Maharishi when he was touring with the Beach Boys. It was as though that attack had guaranteed him a place in heaven and he wanted everyone to know it. Maybe there was something she was missing. Why else would hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers die for the sake of a mountainous stretch of rubble filled with tribes that switched alliances as quickly as waitresses switched jobs? As she used to watch the black and white images flickering on the television, she wanted to dive in and grab hold of them. She wanted to become one with the land and the people, blend into that vast stretch of emptiness that lied at the base of all the exoticism and deceit in Afghanistan. Her soul was to men what Afghanistan was to her and the rest of the world. Come and get me, she would think as she lay in bed staring at the ceiling and holding her small ragged teddy bear imagining the day she would finally reach puberty and take on the world. Use me, ruin me, destroy me; do whatever you want to me, but you will always come out worse in the end.

So why did she suddenly feel so awful at the thought of what had happened with Gregory the night before? After all, she was only deceiving three men in pretty much the same way that an Afghani tribesman could simultaneously claim to be a communist, a Muslim, and a Tajik while living quietly somewhere in Kabul selling heroin or weapons to whichever side served his purpose on that particular day. Such behavior was classic Laura Chain. It was the Laura Chain of old. The young starlet, brought up on images of the Afghan war, the Laura Chain who left seasoned bikers pounding on her door at four a.m. begging for just one last taste of her milky white breasts. The daring sex kitten who let no man posses her but let all men try, giving the prize to no one, but freely offering broken, hopelessly irreparable fragments of it to everyone. So, finally having matured and settled down with Mace over the last few years, shouldn't she be relieved to catch at least a fading glimpse of the old Laura Chain as a reminder that she was really still _herself_?

Laura got out of bed and went into the kitchen, still illuminated on and off by the soft pink glow of the flashing neon sign outside. Byzantium. She made herself a cup of tea and stared out into the angled splatter of stone towers and menacing lights that made up Manhattan. But something inside her seemed different. It was the first time that she had ever realized that the old Laura was no longer there, or rather that the old Laura had grown old and left the old, younger, Laura behind. Aging. Botox. Cryogenic beauty. Sure you could still look young but was that the same as actually being young? Freeze your face to get rid of a few wrinkles. Freeze your mind so it stops growing altogether and you can fool yourself into thinking you are still young – was it even possible? Maybe she was actually growing older on the inside and in the process had changed her values without even knowing it. In aging resided all those things you were taught to hate: the change from six coffees a day to three teas a day; the change from tight denim and muslin so thin it was just asking men to tear it off to loose canvas pants and casual teal sweaters. The twentieth century was the century of the rock star and rebel. It was the century of Lenin and Lennon, a century where teenage mods decked out in pencil-thin Italian suits shared the dance floors of London and Paris with Colombian drug lords and Kuwaiti princes alike. It was a century where people viewed surrealist films in dank Berlin cafés while talking about _the new morality_. It was a century where people smashed chairs at the debuts of new ballets and symphonies. Forget Franco, Stalin, and Hitler. This was no century for leaders and politicians. All you needed in the twentieth century to look deep was a trendy haircut, a great ass, and a used bass guitar: it was no century for old men.

Laura turned in bed, nursing a slight cramp. So, what of the twenty first century? If history flowed in waves, it would be a century of the old and meek. Maybe that's why she felt the way she did. She was _the first woman of the twenty first century_ by definition. Johnny Enzyme had made her so. And in being the first women of a century defined by weakness, it was only a matter of time before its dormant traits hatched and began to manifest themselves in her personality. There had been such centuries before. Centuries of the stale and numb. And there were even people in the twentieth century who had somehow become displaced and actually belonged in these centuries. People like Ronald Reagan and George Bush. They belonged in the centuries of the old, centuries like the ones that brought about the witch trials and the Spanish Inquisition. But if this was all true, Johnny Enzyme had done the unforgivable by crowning her the queen of an era that only seemed glamorous on the surface. The water pipes beneath the floor croaked and she let out a sigh of frustration. It was always possible that feeling old wasn't as bad as everyone said it was. Maybe it was just another side of life. If youth was one side, old age had to be the other. If this weren't so, the universe would collapse. Things wouldn't fit. Everything had to balance out in the end. Maybe all those old people knew something she didn't and just weren't telling us. Maybe it was better to be older. Maybe they just laughed at all the young people showing up at nightclubs at three a.m. with flowers in their hair looking for _it_. They had already found _it_ , whether it was in some spiritual revelation, a new garden fence, or the ascension to grandparenthood, and they weren't to eager to tell us. They were too busy being old and enjoying it. Maybe, maybe, just maybe. But how could she know for sure?

She bit into a fragment of a peach that was sitting in the refrigerator and suddenly lost her appetite. It reminded her of a thousand junior high school cafeterias she would have rather never entered. The flesh of the fruit was hard and dry, more like something used in for insulation than something that would provide the body with some form of nutrition. She set it down on the counter and went out into the living room. She might feel like eating it later.

She stretched back and touched the floor behind her, adopting the wheel posture, something she had always been able to do without any formal training in Yoga. There was something distinctly sexual about the posture that made her think of Gregory. It was the dog gnawing away at her bone. Why did she find him attractive? If anything, he was too spoiled and fussy for a woman like her, the sort of guy that might appeal to exactly the sort of girl she wasn't. He probably had his underwear flown in from some place like Sweden. Yet again, she had to admit it to herself, he did appeal to her. It was the third time she had gone over the dilemma and the third time she came out with the same conclusion. She was getting bored with the results. She didn't want to think about it anymore. All she wanted was to get old to find out whatever it was she could find out about life and forget about men altogether.

She logged onto the computer at her desk and went directly into her e-mail account. There was a message from an address she vaguely recognized. Halo. She tapped her index finger on her mouse nervously and then opened the message. _Dear Laura_ , it began. She read on, digesting the words slowly and deliberately as she let the message take shape in her mind. The logic of his proposal was exactly what she needed to clear her mind and give her the confidence to move forward. When she finished she was relieved to find that its consequences didn't trouble her as much as she thought they would: a trip to England, and a chance to distance herself from what was happening to her back in New York. It seemed like a good idea, a blessing even. Johnny Enzyme would certainly have approved. It would be the wake up call she needed, a chance to get away and clear her head. All she needed was a short holiday and then she could rid herself of all her newfound confusion. She would hand the information over to Halo and he would thank her in his typically British way and everything would be closed. He would give her the money and she would never see either him or Gregory again. She would come back and get her life back on track. She wasn't growing old or changing at all. It was just the stress associated with the events of the past few weeks that was making things seem more complicated than they really were. Whatever she may or may not have felt for Gregory was an illusion imposed by the wine and the direction the evening had taken. And even if she did have feelings for him, it was only because she was human and when people were thrown together in a situation, no matter how positive or destructive, they tended to rub off on each other and develop a bond. In jail prisoners and guards often became friends. In broken homes, abused children were strangely loyal to their violent parents. She would go to England, finish the job, and when she came back everything would be fine. Byzantium, bloody fucking Byzantium. The words echoed in her head to the rhythm of the pink light from outside, now fading into the light of dawn, as her thoughts slowly blended into the tubercular cough of traffic horns hacking away in the distance.

She looked out her window. New York lay there dead and electric with its traffic lights, its dark wires spanning miles of alleys, and its broken fruit stands. The subway stations with their candied M & M color schemes and Sesame Street routings. Avenue A, avenue B, Avenue C, and all the way down to avenue Q and W, places so exotic and seemingly absurd she wondered if they existed at all. The city was dragging her down its magic spiral, drawing her into its web of illusions, making her feel as though she was changing inside when maybe she wasn't changing at all and it was only making her think so. She had to get away. She had to get away to London. All she had to do was call work and ask for all those days off that were owed to her from two years of not taking a holiday. In her imagination, London was a place with lots of wrought iron and umbrellas where people politely sipped their teas while talking about neighborhood goings on and the state of the weather. Regardless of whether the twenty first century was for the young, old, or simply inquisitive, but spiritually misguided, she had to get away from New York. It was _her_ century and it was rapidly slipping away from her. She had to get back to herself. She had to get to London.

### Chapter 4.3

The world was under the influence of something both beatific and horrible, Gregory thought as he sliced a thin filet from the side of a large Atlantic Salmon that was basking on the counter in front of him. Fish had worked before, so why shouldn't it again? It worked for Christ; it was even His symbol. All Gregory needed was a few loaves and he'd be set. The clouds would part, her legs would spread, and the prince of love would descend from the sky. Gregory was definitely on a roll with fish. He squeezed a few drops of lemon juice onto the thin wet slice and cocked back his head, dropping the tender pink morsel into his mouth and letting it slide gracefully past his tongue into the warm hollows of his throat. The streets outside were filled with a warm amber light that almost seemed to penetrate matter itself and lift the world up to a higher plane. A small gang of school children roamed back and forth between the gutters of an alleyway. Something was happening out there. Something was changing for the better. The world was turning on its head and would never be the same again. A rabbi stepped out of a black limousine and started shaking his fist in remonstration at the gang. A few boys gave him the finger and ran to the end of the block, turning back at the last second to give him a second finger for good measure before vanishing from view. Fish had worked before and it would definitely work again.

He went into the bedroom to get dressed. The inside button on his brand new _Paul Smith_ mohair trousers slipped from his fingers a few times before he got it right and was finally able to move on to the next step: the _Prada_ shirt. He took a silk button down the color of smoked amethyst from his closet and inserted his arms before allowing it to fall with casual grace over his torso to a point just below his waist. What was happening with Laura was more than just encouraging. While she had walked out on him just before the moment of truth, the magical point of no return, she had only done so to adhere to those codes of conduct expected from a woman of higher pedigree. She had even made allusions to Henry James and his heroine Isabel Archer, now the female cupid of Gregory's dreams, the patron saint of his love for Laura. Although he had never read the book, he felt he already had. It was a secret message that she was in love with him: archer, bow, Cupid. It was obvious. But it was also a sign that she wanted to wait, as implied by her description of the bow-slinger Isabel as an independent woman confronting her destiny and wanting to defy the world of chauvinistic male values. All it would take was a short cooling off period and then he would be set. If he called her too soon she would feel pressured and she would back off just out of principle. That's why he had to wait. Then she would miss him and think she might have actually driven him away. And just when she was starting to worry he might never call again, the phone would ring and his gentle seraphic voice would flutter across the phone lines as if presented to her on the heels of a divine messenger.

Yes, he felt more confident than ever, almost too confident. If she had wanted to sleep with him the first night he would have had reason to be suspicious. She would have done the same with countless other men. Yet if she would have called him a creep and slammed the door in his face, he would have been begging for her forgiveness and following her around town hoping for amnesty. It was only the middle ground, the promise that everything had gone well but more was on its way, which made him feel so smug and self-assured. Did being this close to victory really afford such privileges? In past situations he had often felt just as confident only to get dumped the very next day and then publicly defamed the day after that: the double whammy. But this time was going to be different. This time was going to be _new_. The Fish Gods were definitely on the upswing.

"Call me!" he sang into his closet as he pumped his arm up and down in the air, imagining he was one of the men in the chorus for Blondie's golden oldie hit. It could have been Katie Perry, Lady Gaga, or even Rhiannon, but today it was Blondie, or rather Laura in the guise of Deborah Harry who was doing the singing. But with so many men potentially toasting her beauty, was it really safe to play it cool and risk letting her get away? Throwing caution to the wind, he picked up the phone and dialed her number. He knew it was better to wait, but he just had to hear the sound of her voice to make sure she still felt the same and hadn't run off with some wealthy new gigolo. The phone rang. Then it rang again. And again. By the fifth ring he felt a palpitation in his chest. If she wasn't home, where was the answering machine? By the tenth ring he lost heart and hung up.

As he put on his socks a large egg-shaped cloud visible from his window darkened the sky, bringing with it an equally dark thought. Maybe Laura was home with another man and she had disconnected the answering machine because she was just too wrapped up in her daring new paramour to pick up the phone. Didn't people always leave their answering machines on when they went out, especially professional women in the advertising business who probably took on a lot of freelance work at home? He chided himself for being so pompous as to think that she would be waiting desperately for his phone call if he ignored her for a few days. It was just another manifestation of a lowbrow brand of chauvinism that had no place in the world.

He stood up and a second dark thought entered his mind. If he was a true sexist, then maybe she didn't want him to call at all and it was only his "male" imagination that made him think so. If she really cared for him she would have slept with him on the first date, or would she have? All the murderous beauty that had towered before him only moments before was suddenly gone. Now, he was really confused. What was the truth? Perhaps his only choice was to call Benny and see what she thought. Asking a woman was the only way to find out what other women were thinking. If only his mother wouldn't have been so strict with him. Then he would trust women more and always know what to do in situations like this. But that was another story altogether. Something he didn't want to get into. Not one bit.

He dialed Benny's number and she answered on the first ring. She had been lying around her apartment all morning reading tennis magazines and was in the perfect mood to go out and get some fresh air. So they arranged to meet an hour later in a Russian teahouse just off Lexington Square. It was a place he had never noticed before, located between a Jewish bakery and an everything-for-a-dollar store. Benny always knew all the right places. Benny had a laser-beam sense of where to meet and where not to meet. Simply put, Benny _knew_. If they put her on to discovering a cure for cancer, she would have it in a matter of months. That was the kind of woman she was. That was why he couldn't stand living with her. Perfection by itself was good, but only up to a point. When it gets too strong and starts calling all the shots that's when you realize its time for a change. Perfection ultimately shows you how lackluster you really are. And who needs that?

"Do you think Putin comes here when he's in New York?" she asked as she draped her caramel colored coat around her seat and sat down. He had been quietly waiting for fifteen minutes working on a cup of orange pekoe tea.

"Yes," he replied. She was wearing a tight white top with white shorts – like some long lost cousin of Serena Williams – and had a large white shopping bag with "Jenin" written on the side. He noticed her breasts looked larger than they had the last time he saw her and her ass seemed plusher yet more dynamic than ever. Was it hydrogel?

"I don't," she said. She dug her hand into the bag and pulled out a package of gum. "Do you want one?"

"No."

She unwrapped a stick of gum as though it were an irreplaceable relic and then stuffed it in her mouth. The contrast made him smirk.

"Why would he come here? This place is for people like us. He probably gets enough of Russia when he's there. I'm sure he drops the vodka and switches borscht for Chicago ribs whenever he's in town."

"Maybe," he said compliantly. "But I once ran into a Russian outside a club one night at two in the morning. He was drunk out of his mind and staggered up to me begging for vodka. He even offered to buy some from me if I had any in my apartment. I heard they can't do without it when they go abroad."

"Like Americans and their Bud?"

Gregory stopped the waitress with a quick snap of his fingers and a fluid gesture with his hands in the direction of Benny. She picked up the menu and pointed to an item almost immediately. Benny was fast. She obviously knew the ropes when it came to Russian food. And she knew the ropes about women to match.

The waitress turned to Gregory. "I'll have whatever she's having," he said. "I trust her taste."

Over the next twenty minutes Gregory described in the finest detail - broken facts pieced together like fragments of a shattered stained glass window – exactly what had happened with Laura, leaving no item of information out, no matter how small. The smell of her perfume, the way her fingers moved as she ate her fish, the way she kissed him, the width of her tongue, the degree of penetration, the length and persistence. Women had their own language and they could always read between the lines. He knew that much, but for some reason had never been able to decode their sign and body language. It was like an ancient ode written in an obscure alphabet that had some deep hidden meaning, but he was never sure what. Men were so much simpler. Men never knew what other men would do in any given situation. He couldn't imagine giving a woman advice about how to land a man the way women could give men advice about landing other women. It just wasn't possible. Only women could give advice on love.

"Women are attached through their bodies to the moon and earth," she said as the waitress brought two identical plates with what looked like low-grade cod dressed up in an elegant ensemble of potatoes and beets. A six dressed up as a nine: the fish gods were coming up trumps again. It was their signal that everything was fine and he had done the right thing in seeking Benny's advice. "You have to feel them out. Reading a woman is like reading the moonlight reflecting off the surface of a rippling lake."

"A rippling lake...I like it."

"But eventually you have to figure out for yourself what to do. Having a plan is so transparent. When you achieve an intuitive knowledge of how to turn women on no amount of advice will ever make a difference. It may even ruin your chances."

"Every one is different. When you're confident with 999 women you may be a total loser with the thousandth. That's where I'm at."

"Well, to be honest, I think you are in good shape. I think if she didn't like you she wouldn't have left a note. I would have just walked out. Maybe even right in front of you if I felt I had to. But, no. It has the sound of further intrigue. If she thought of you as just a one-night stand she would have stayed. If she didn't like you, she would have left."

"What if she just wants to be friends?"

"The perennial question...friends. The F-word." She shook her head in disbelief. "Do you know how many men I had to crush with that epitaph? They would almost rather I told them outright I hated them so I could give them a reason to hate me back. No. She doesn't just want to be friends. I can sense it."

"In the moonlight?"

"If you insist. I sense it in the moonlight, if that's what you want me to say. The feminine powers." She smiled like a model on a toothpaste ad. "Was that what you meant?"

"I guess so. But sometimes I don't know what I mean."

"Like me. Or maybe like all of us."

Gregory watched her eyelids fluttering as she took a sip of her tea. Was there a secret message that she wanted him – or didn't want him – to know? That was the razor's edge of simplicity with women. Why he was always interested. Why even the most trivial of comments from the right pair of lips could gain whole new layers of profundity under the right set of lights.

When he finished Gregory ordered a quick espresso to sip through until Benny was finished. It was always like that between them. She had a hidden agenda to make him less attractive to other women by eating too slowly, thereby forcing him to eat more and get fat while at the same time making sure he ended up paying for all the extra food he had to order as she sat there nursing the last carrot on her plate. This would have the ultimate effect of making him poor and, in so doing, also make him less attractive to other women. It also made him look rude for eating to quickly when it was obviously she that was eating too slowly. Girls like Benny were always on the go. They never stopped their idyll scheming.

When Gregory got back to his apartment he logged on to his computer and entered the Credit Lyonnais site. World equity transfers. Financial shell games. Loose bills in the laundry. The logo came up and he entered his password. In a matter of moments the Starlight page came up. The account balance was a ripe seventy dollars and forty nine cents. It was best to keep the balance low until just before the big cash dump. That way nobody got suspicious. All he needed to do was a quick transfer. He went to get the list of numbers and letters he had gotten from the Carrier, tearing it neatly off the cork notice board as he turned in one motion to walk back to his computer. Then he went into Google Chrome and navigated to the transfer page. In less than five minutes he had entered all the right numbers and typed in seven hundred million. After a few security questions and a secret password, he was done.

When he left the site it was as though nothing had happened. All he did was type in a few digits and press a few keys on his keypad. Nothing. Yet in a way everything had happened. The funds were now in place and all he had to do was wait for the Euro to drop a few fractions of a percent against the US dollar as it certainly would with such a sudden movement of funds so he could move back the seven hundred million at the lower rate and keep the profit hidden away in Bitcoin. As for the virtual bank, it would only take a few meetings with Henderson to get things rolling. In no time everything would fall into place. Perhaps even more importantly, he would be utterly irresistible to Laura. All he had to do was give half of the profit to the Carrier and everyone would be happy. And the Carrier was always easy to please. The Carrier would never let him down. They were like brothers. Money, like love, flowed like blood and rain.

### Chapter 4.4

Three days after Halo's last e-mail Laura found the printout for her flight itinerary complete with a prepaid hotel voucher in her mailbox downstairs. It was tucked inside a blank DVD case and wrapped in brown paper like a family gift. She had to admit it seemed strange that she had to fly all the way to London just to deliver a string of numbers that she could just as easily read out to him across the bar at Selbey's, but she reassured herself that Halo's story seemed plausible and some of his colleagues who were not available to meet her in New York probably wanted to ask her detailed questions about Gregory and his apartment in order to see if there was anything else that could possibly be used in their case against him. As soon as she got back to her apartment she got a call from Gregory, but decided not to answer and just let him leave a massage instead. Her mind was already settled: forget what happened between them and get back to normality as soon as possible. As she listened to his voice - upbeat and decidedly unctuous - going on about how great a time he had and how he hoped they could do it again sometime soon, she examined a small radial crack on the ceiling out of the corner of her eye wondering if it might actually be a spider. His tone was surprisingly self confident given she had just walked out on him, and he kept referring to an olive that he had caught between his teeth as though he thought he was being funny. Would they ever see each other again? She imagined standing across from him in a courtroom testifying as he glowered into her eyes.

The night before her flight Mace came over with an antique chessboard he had just bought in a pawnshop and placidly arranged the carved ivory pieces on the coffee table in front of her. That morning she had taken great care explaining to him how the trip was an important step in her career, a chance to meet some European executives who could help her get a promotion, and he was surprisingly supportive and resigned to the idea. He even said it would be good for her and a chance for him to catch up with some old friends. Since Ray had visited a few weeks ago Mace seemed strangely pacified and had dropped all suspicions she was being untrue to him. He was also in a better mood because whoever had accused him of stealing his wallet didn't even bother to show up at the preliminary court hearing.

"What was his name anyway?" she asked, still wondering - perhaps even hoping - that it was Gregory.

"Who?"

"The guy who says you stole his wallet."

"I have it written on a document somewhere. All those banker types are all the same anyway." He flicked on the television. The image of a decimated Manhattan lurking beneath a luminous frost of white smoke spread into the room. A narrator spoke in a detached voice: _"This is the age of the techno-barbarian. Man has learned to master the nanoworld and in so doing create devices that facilitate his complete domination of the planet. Knowledge - even money - has become nothing more than a random code of magnetic particles, ones and zeros, dots and dashes, a universe unto itself with no sense of right or wrong. Information has become a source of misinformation, a way of further ushering mankind into a new dark age. Where is Virgil, where is Homer? What would Plato have said if he could see this image of New York in complete rubble?"_

"The Kali Yuga," Mace muttered ominously. "The fucking Kali Yuga," he suddenly shouted. "You can even hear it on the radio. Rock is exactly the same it was twenty years ago. Every time I turn it on it's the same damn Pink Floyd song that was playing the last time I turned it on. There's nothing new. No creativity left. We're entering a new stage of decadence. The Kali Yuga of Classic rock!" He saluted to an unseen dictator. "Imagine a post-apocalyptic world with a 1984-style government forcing people by threat of torture to listen to a radio station that played "Wish You Were Here" twenty four hours a day. That's what I mean. The fucking Kali Yuga."

Laura stared into the television thinking about work and how much she would have to catch up on when she got back from London. It had been so long since she took a holiday that she was almost afraid of breaking away from the security of her daily routine. What would the teenage Laura have thought of the woman she had now become? "What was that," she finally asked, realizing that she had not been listening to him at all.

"Nothing. I was just saying that it looks better," he said. "With the case. That means when you get back we can get back to square one with each other."

"Yes," she said. "I'll be looking forward to it."

"Love is like chess," he said in a surprisingly grandiloquent tone. "I know it doesn't sound too original, but it's true. Kings and Queens are you and I. The bishops are all those people trying to tell us we're nothing but shit and should pack it in and stop trying to fight. Society doesn't want you to be in love. They want you to be married so they can control you, but they don't want you to be in love. Love is too much of a wild card."

"And the horses?"

"You mean the knights? They are all the cars and bicycles and motorbikes we ride on to get around town. Without the horses you can't make it anywhere in love. What would Tristan have done if he had no horse to meet his fair Isolde?" He winked at her and gave her an affectionate nudge.

"And what are pawns and castles?"

"The castles are your place and mine. If you lose your castle you have to do it on the back of a horse – or in a car. And pawns? They are all the people you run into every day that get in your way on the bus and bump into you on the street and come to your parties when you've never even met them."

"Then how do you win?"

"You win when a Queen takes a King. That's the only way you can really win. When the Queen invites you over to her place and you have no other choice but to give her the game and start dancing to the beat of an Argentine tango!"

He swept the board off the table with a decisive swipe of his forearm and immediately started unbuttoning Laura's shirt, the pieces still cascading across the floor. His come-on with chess commentary could not have been any cheesier, but somehow it eased her nerves enough to change her mood. By the time her clothes were scattered across the floor she was already laughing hysterically. She felt liberated and free, a bubble of bright gas dancing in a just-opened bottle of Perrier water. Her game with Halo was close to finishing and it wouldn't be long before she could get back to being herself and spending more time with Mace. If only life were so simple. If only Laura knew. But perhaps it was her lot in life to be the one person on Earth who could never really know – anything.

Laura took her seat by the window in the middle of the 747 and took out a copy of the flight magazine from the pouch on the back of the seat in front of her. A short man carrying three plastic souvenir bags took the place beside her. He tucked them under the seat in front of him and fastened his seatbelt as she went over her itinerary in her head. She would take a train into London to the hotel. Then she would have the rest of the afternoon to sleep and prepare to meet Halo at eight p.m. in front of the gates to the main park in Crystal Palace. She imagined the air would be dense with fog and he would appear like a Cary Grant from behind a grey and impenetrable wall of mist. And then he would vanish as quickly as he came, leaving her just as alone and by herself as she always had been, hoping for something new and different to come along and change her life.

It was already dark when the 747 pulled out of the gate and slowly rolled to the runway, its path illuminated by a row of brilliant violet lights glowing like torches at a pagan incantation. As the plane took off she was overcome with a sense of freedom and exhilaration, hardly the anxiety and trepidation she had been expecting. After a quick dinner and beverage service she let her seat back and fell asleep. When you flew west to east the sun set so quickly. But the sunrise always came even faster. By the time she opened her eyes they were already serving coffee and small muffins, so sticky and moist they could have passed for pound cake, no doubt designed to wake you up and tide you over for just long enough to get through immigration and get a real breakfast. As the attendants collected the trays, the pilot announced that they were over Bristol. She looked out the window but saw only clouds. Soon, though, they had penetrated the cloud layer and were gradually sinking towards the green and deeper green-patched ground below. There were small reddish brown squares, which, as they got closer, became houses. As the stewardess began to serve a second round of coffee, cars were suddenly visible followed by people, and then even their dogs. Soon, they were almost ready to land. Row houses lined up on seemingly infinite lines of other row houses. The buildings had a charming toy-like quality. This was the England of her childhood fantasies. Would she even see a London Bus? She thought of Johnny Enzyme's UK vinyl collection and whether she would have time to see if they had any _Marauder's_ singles in the record stores. They had never even made it out of Portland to reach a greater US audience but with a small underground following on West coast college radio maybe they somehow had a cult following in the UK. She felt young and vulnerable again in a way that almost frightened her. All the strength and conviction she had gained in the week leading up to the trip was under fire and a new, more delicate and reserved Laura was stirring inside her. As the plane touched down on the runway she imagined a former life where she was a spoiled Victorian girl rolling a hoop through the streets with a frail but dignified pout swelling across her rosy face.

When she stepped out of customs and immigration and into the main concourse at Gatwick Airport her first impression of the UK was that it was slower than New York: everything seemed heavier, thicker, even duller. A red-headed woman who seemed far too heavy to support her own weight stood in the arrivals area holding a cardboard sign with a person's name written in large black letters. Laura made her way through a large crowd of people gathered around a cappuccino and muffin kiosk. Their faces were small and rounded and their eyes conveyed a look of resigned dissatisfaction. The air felt cold and damp, almost sticking to her clothes as she walked past the various newsagents and bookshops towards the baggage claim. It was a sensation that made her feel sleepy, but at the same time her joints felt like they were going to explode. She wanted to go somewhere and lie down. It was a feeling she never had in New York. The US always shouted at you like a football coach through a megaphone. The UK was more like a woman, but a particular kind of woman: the type that gives up and accepts the way things are and looses the desire to change and move on, but also expects you to follow suit or risk being permanently ostracized by her and her fellows. But it would be a strange act of perversion that anybody could ever refer to America as a woman. England: yes. America: no.

She followed signs to the train station in the South Terminal and waited for the first service to London. There was a whole choice of trains to London depending on where you wanted to go. Trains going to Croydon, Clapham, Blackfriars, London Bridge, and St. Aubins. Which one was hers? Some roared through the station with the arrogance of Tomahawk missiles, perhaps even speeding up as they passed to send out the message that anyone who opposed them would be sucked under and sliced in half by their huge shining wheels. Others stopped a hundred yards before the platform and stood there indefinitely as though the driver was unsure the station was the one he thought it was and had to contact some central authority to check. After ten minutes, her knees still aching from the flight, she wished she had made credit card reservations for her train before leaving New York. That would have been much easier. Navigating transportation networks in a new city after an overseas flight seemed like a task fit for Hercules, and not a travel-weary woman in her early thirties.

A train to London Victoria finally rolled in and lurched to a stop with a sudden squeak of the wheels. She had heard of Victoria before. It had to be the right train. She stepped on and took a seat on a worn-down blue-and-purple checkered seat. She felt more relaxed and confident as the train slowly started to roll into motion. On the way the train stopped at several smaller stations, each one appearing to be virtually identical to the last. Redhill. Croydon. The only difference seemed to be in the billboards. One depicted a cartoon frog crouched as though ready to jump on top of the globe with a Kindle in its hand. There was another that showed a woman, totally naked except for a white string bikini, standing alone on a sandy beach with a Kindle lodged in her mouth. Her arms were held up high in the air as though she was gesturing to somebody far out of view, perhaps seated in an airplane. People seemed to like Kindles - and therefore reading - more in the UK than they did in the US. It was a good sign. The ads also made her realize how the world of advertising was obviously a lot further ahead than most people gave them credit for. They knew everything before it happened. They made things happen and invented whole social movements in order to create a market for products that didn't even exist yet. If they were in charge of the war against terrorism, they would have known where Bin Laden was before the FBI and CIA did. That was what sales was all about. You had to have your finger on the pulse before anyone else did, before the heart even uttered that vital beat which downstream in the arteries and veins would eventually become the pulse. That's why ads were always a good indication of the personality of a country. Ads that worked in America would never work in the UK. Even though everything was slower here, almost sickly even, she sensed that people were smarter and generally more informed. In America you lost yourself in your own speed, your own after-burn, and as a result never really knew what was going on anywhere else.

When the train pulled into Victoria station she felt for a moment she was back in New York. The ceilings were low as only in a place like Penn station, and there were disproportionately stubby pillars every twenty or thirty feet as though the ceiling were made out of some preternaturally heavy substance that was about to give way to gravity and cave in at any minute. She stepped out of the train and smiled: no one had asked her for a ticket and she had forgotten to buy one. She walked through the dark area covered by the low ceiling past a set of turnstiles into a main concourse with a ceiling so high there were pigeons nesting in the rafters. _The violence of the thrush_ , she thought, recalling a line from a T.S. Eliot poem she had once studied in university. The words seemed strangely appropriate, a thrush being considered a smaller, gentler bird – as the UK was to the US – and yet hidden in its apparent peace and calm was an undercurrent of something dark and violent. It was in the eyes, all light and color, but hard as marble or granite slabs. They were unfriendly. The people around her were reading magazines at standing isolated and columnar beside one another like statues at the gate of a penitentiary. She walked by a shoeshine booth. The shoeshine man was a tall and dignified Caribbean with dark crystalline eyes and a short beard that extended from one ear to the other. He smiled as she passed. It was a kind, but generic smile, one she had seen before in countless films set in modern England.

She proceeded slowly, as if in a haze, to the front entrance of the station. There was a staircase descending into the underground and a wide clearing that led out to a main street where she could see a line of bright red London busses waiting impatiently. They were much more beautiful than she ever imagined; she almost wanted to run up and touch one on the side. After a few minutes of indecision, she found an information booth where a woman, smiling far too much for the grave look in her eyes, gave her a map showing the bed and breakfast establishments in the neighborhood. The woman had her job down to a science, marking with large circles the location of each place. She also marked down the prices per night from memory and then smiled again, as though they had just had tea together and had promised to meet again in the near future. Since Laura was tired and didn't have the strength to deal with maps or any other potential problems, she told the woman she already had reservations at a place called 'The King James' - providing the street address from her itinerary - and asked her to circle it and the nearest tube station for her, which the woman did with a smile. Fortunately, it was close enough to walk if she didn't mind the twenty-minute journey.

On the way she was forced to dodge and weave through several densely packed clusters of people that didn't seem to see her, even when she said "excuse me" and "sorry" after banging shoulders with them. It was overcast outside and she could see the fluidic reflections of clouds in the shop windows, seemingly batiked across people's faces as they passed. Something inside her said that it was all related. The pedestrians were in a hurry because they were in a bad mood and they were in a bad mood because it was cloudy. She had read somewhere once that the British talked about weather more than any people on earth. The article said that it was because depression cycles were intimately related to the level of light at any time of year and the UK was cloudier than most places on Earth. So when it came to reading the daily weather report the British were like manic-depressives keeping a careful eye on the bottle of lithium in their medicine chest.

The King James turned out to be a small hotel with corners capped by Victorian onion domes that rose elegantly from the white brick walls. It had a fresh seaside look that she found appealing. Inside, a smug-looking Pakistani man wearing a worn green cardigan with large leather buttons took her name and credit card number and led her to a small room on the second floor with a tiny bathroom the size of a broom closet. It would have to do. She thanked the man and he nodded as though he saw it as some form of condescension that she had troubled herself to say anything at all and somewhere behind her words was the assumption that he was beneath her and that by thanking him she was freeing herself of some kind of guilt associated with her presumed superiority. She closed the door and locked it with the old fashioned key and threw herself down on the bed.

When she woke up again it was already dark and she could hear shouting outside her window. It was only then that she really felt alone and so far away from anything she knew that she might as well have been in a different dimension. It was an exotic, but threatening feeling, like staring into the door of a dimly lit nightclub at the end of a cold dark alley in the South Bronx. All she had to do was step inside.

### Chapter 4.5

Laura dug her heels into the mossy wet earth. It wasn't raining but for some reason the whole world felt like the inside of a bathroom after a shower. Crystal Palace Park was dark except for the reflections of the streetlights off the tiny pearls of moisture suspended in the air, making London seem like little more than some vague damp sultanate condemned to a realm beyond all sense and reason. She looked at her watch. It was nine p.m. and there was no one to be seen. She guessed that everybody was "down at the pub". From what she had learned watching "East Enders", "Coronation Street" and a few British police dramas on television, it seemed that people in England were always coming from or going to the pub. And those few people weren't "down at the pub" were thinking about when they would next go to the pub or talking with their friends about the last time they went to the pub. It was a lifestyle that seemed attractive to her; not because of the excess drinking but because it was more gregarious than American society, which seemed to consist of accumulating luxury items in order to fill out the void created by the industrialized society, so you could feel that your life was somehow meaningful, or at least more meaningful than your neighbor's.

There was a cold gust of air that intensified to the point that she was sure a storm was on its way. But as quickly as it came, bending the trees and even blowing over a garbage can in its wake, it suddenly went dead, leaving the same wet calm that had preceded it. Her fingers felt cold. She put her hands in her pocket and pulled out a small five-pound bill. British money looked less serious than American money. Perhaps money and the whole world of finance and banking was really no more than a childish game that people like Stork took seriously only so you would take them seriously. She put the bill back in her pocket and looked a second time at her watch. It was Halo's style to arrive late - that much she already knew and had no control over. But at least he could have shown up early this time, seeing she had come all the way across the Atlantic to meet him. She kicked at the ground, forming a circle of small indentations in the bare earth like a miniature fire hearth. A small dog the size of a fox approached her and stopped, staring at her dumbfounded as though she had somehow violated its previously unshakeable sense of reality; then it turned away and ran towards a large gate guarded on either side by an imperious stone lion. A woman screamed in the distance and then Laura heard the sound of soccer brawlers singing a victory song. She felt threatened and alone. There was a second scream and she was suddenly overwhelmed by the thought that Halo was a serial rapist and that he had made up some far-fetched story about being an international agent chasing after a scam artist just to get her to trust him and lure her over to England where he could commit his heinous acts upon her without any threat of investigation. The newspapers would make a big deal about it for a day or two but as soon as something else happened - a shark attack in Australia, an insurrection in Thailand, or a bank robbery in Paris - it would already be forgotten. No one would ever really miss an American woman travelling alone abroad. She turned her head as an ambulance roared by, its revolving blue light and sickly seesaw drone filling her with a sense of momentary security. Halo was an international officer of the law and she was only being paranoid. But when the ambulance finally faded away into the distance and she could no longer hear its tuneless wail, her fears returned with redoubled force. It was as though they had been there all along and had only slipped behind a shadow for long enough to trick her into feeling safe. Being a police officer and a rapist weren't mutually exclusive qualities: a lot of rapists turned out to be cops and a lot of cops turned out to be rapists. In the cold moonlit night anything seemed possible.

Half an hour later a dark figure appeared in the distance, illuminated by the headlights of a series of passing cars. As it approached it took on the form of first an old woman and then a man holding some kind of animal. When it was twenty meters away her gaze sharpened and Halo's form snapped quickly into focus.

As he came closer she felt angry. It was obvious he had been watching her all along to make sure she came alone. How dare he, she thought. But when he finally stopped in front of her he looked so fair and decent - like a kind judge or benefactor of the poor - all her aggressions faded.

"Laura," his voice chimed into the night. "My sincerest of apologies." He bowed slightly, taking her hand and kissing it before righting his posture.

"It's OK," she said. She felt suddenly clumsy and unsophisticated speaking with an obvious American accent in the middle of a London park lit only by the moon. For a moment she imagined she was the star of a screwball comedy in which uncivilized American tourists were the butt of all the jokes played on them by apparently cultured but ultimately even more uncivilized Europeans.

"I was detained on the Underground. And the connection to the train wasn't the best. They have to expand the Underground to these outer lying zones. The trains are just too slow."

"The New York subway system all over again."

"That's what all the visitors think. London is always kinder to its guests than those who actually live here."

Laura nodded and cleared her throat. "I brought the information." She looked at Halo as she would one of her clients, with a deceptive cordiality that was really no more than a barrier erected against any further incursions into the realm of intimacy.

"Very good," he said. "I knew that you wouldn't have any trouble. I could tell you had the perfect balance between business and pleasure that was required."

Laura heard a sound behind her like an ice cream truck or bicycle vendor and turned. There was a small boy running past a tennis court in the distance as he swirled some kind of noisemaker in the air. He vanished into the darkness and the sound slowly faded into the background hiss of the wind passing through the grass and leaves. It was a relaxing and peaceful sound that made her want to lie down in the grass and rest.

"Why do they call this Crystal Palace?" she asked after turning back to Halo.

"I never really asked that question," he replied as though he was satisfied not to know the reason. The attitude seemed very British to her. Don't ask any questions of your traditions, just accept them and do what every one else does.

"Sometimes I see the name come on television. Usually I think it has to do with sports. They have a team, don't they?"

"Yes," Halo said. "Football. And a good one at that. But you'll never confuse me with a football supporter."

"When the name comes on television I always think that there must be some kind of fairyland palace of diamonds and glass glimmering majestically on top of a hill. Something like a vast hothouse with every angle open to the sun."

"But people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones," he said with an eerie sense of admonishment, appearing to sense in her comment a hint of some deeper treachery she had been hiding from him.

"What do you mean by that? It was only in my imagination. I never actually believed that such a place existed. It would be too fragile."

"Please excuse me, if I may. I guess I regressed and let my mind slip to another topic. It's the darkness. It stirs up thoughts. I always believed that all battles were won at night when commanders huddled together to formulate a winning strategy that the day could never bring them."

Laura took the envelope out of her pocket and handed it to Halo. The sooner she turned the conversation back to business matters the sooner she would be back in her hotel.

"Thank you," he said. He pulled out a second envelope and handed it to her. It was thick and soft. "And here is what I promised you. It's already been counted."

She put it in her pocket without opening it. She trusted that it contained exactly what he said it should. He didn't seem the type to lie over something like money and she was just glad to get the transaction over with.

Halo turned a full circle and stopped. He had a vaguely rhapsodic look in his eyes that belied the serious man she had become used to.

"What do you think of all this?" he asked in a way that suggested he wasn't sure what to think himself and he genuinely cared what she thought and needed to know for his own sense of well being.

"The park?" she asked curtly, although she guessed he was talking about something much bigger.

"Civilization. The question has obsessed me for years. Why do we surround ourselves with _all this_? What purpose do we have, but to work and grow old while we walk our children through man-made leisure centers like this one? Trust me, Laura. I've been thinking about it and I've come to the conclusion that America is a detriment to the progress of the rest of the world. Don't get me wrong. I am almost as American as you are. You would never imagine what the truth is. But could the French revolution ever have happened if a neighboring country, more powerful than France, kept squelching the rebels and supporting the monarchy? No. It never could have happened. And that is the sad thing. The American economy is dependent on so many regimes that treat western businessmen better than their own people. And the world economy is in turn dependent on the American economy. If people tried to rise up in Saudi Arabia and overthrow the whole legacy of princes that run the country, the US would never let them. But what does the Saudi royal family do with its own money but spend it on needless luxury items. Billion dollar bathtubs. There really is no other solution but insurrection."

It was an argument she had heard before from countless Arab journalists hollering from behind their dark beards and wire-rimmed glasses about America and how it was responsible for all their problems. It was a view she was reluctant to sympathize with but something that also frightened her because she knew that it had to be at least partially true or people wouldn't be making such a big deal about it. Part of being in the news business, she thought, was not conveying the objective truth, but couching it in whatever subjective framework pleased the most people in your target audience.

"I get fed up with all this cynicism masquerading as some kind of chic new moral imperative," she said. Halo's face puckered as though he had just absorbed a psychological blow. "I don't mean you. What I mean is all the endless stream of exaggerations being passed off as the truth."

"I can understand your misgivings, but before one can exaggerate the truth, one must know what the truth is. That is the problem of the US. It's based on a set of contradictory policies. It stands for liberty and justice, but to propagate its own democratic system, which acts as a nest for its values, it has to protect itself from international threats by supporting regimes that are friendly to itself, but not its own people. Liberty is hence only liberty for Americans. Justice is hence only justice for Americans. But America is weak and will ultimately fall. All great powers fall. They spread out and weaken inside when those who built it to a level of greatness are replaced by their sons and grandsons who only want to live off its greatness. And when an urgency to defend their most basic values, is replaced by the fear of being attacked from all sides, you know that decadence has set in. Did you see any Marines going after Al Queda in Tora Bora? No. They offered a bounty on Bin Laden's head and waited around for expendable Afghanis to do it."

"Afghanis?" she said, not really knowing if she was asking a question or making a protest. It bothered her that Halo had to make reference to Afghanistan. _After all, she was Afghanistan_. The contours of her stomach were Kabul and her thighs were Herat. The darkest mantle of her passion was Kandahar and hopes and aspirations the White Mountains.

"Yes," he said. "Have you ever been?"

She was ashamed to admit she hadn't, but did so anyway. "No," she said. "But I feel like I have."

"It's really very beautiful. A tapestry of everything it is and isn't. A world of contradictions based on even greater contradictions."

Halo looked off to the left and lifted his head slightly as though he was savoring a memory of once having been there. The sight irritated her. Who was he, anyway? Who was this man standing in front of her lecturing her about the fall of her own country like some kind of dusty old doomsday prophet?

His face became grave as he turned back to her. "Democracy is only a special condition, a rare event in history. We are hunters by nature and it is too much to expect justice throughout the world when democracy is really little more than an eddy in human evolution."

"Byzantium," she uttered as though in a momentary trance. It was the word that Halo had brought to her. It was the beginning of the sequence of events that had led to her standing in front of him in the middle of a park that was named after a glassy citadel that as far as she could tell didn't even exist. She stepped back, as if to signal the beginning of their departure.

"Yes," he said. "Byzantium." He paused as though straining to recollect some lost knowledge from his days in secondary school. "As I remember, the Byzantine Empire used to spread as far North as St. Petersburg. But Lithuania used to spread as far south as the Black Sea. Borders have no real meaning in the end."

"Well," she said abruptly. It was obvious he had misunderstood her. Byzantium was far more to her than a mere boundary on a map or passage from an encyclopedia. "I should be going. It's cold and I'm not sure how to get back."

"Where are you staying?" He seemed suddenly more cordial again.

"Near Victoria Station. The hotel you booked for me."

"That makes things rather simple," he said, ignoring his obvious faux pas. "All trains go to Victoria in this city. Almost. But allow me to call a taxi."

"That's fine," she said. It wasn't really cold and she felt like walking back alone. A taxi always meant an uncomfortable conversation with a cab driver. And when they knew you were a foreigner they could always take you for a much longer journey than you had reckoned for.

"If you insist," he said. The train station is down the street to the left of the main gate. You should be safe there."

She shook his hand and thanked him for the opportunity to do business. That was how she closed all her advertising deals and suddenly it seemed appropriate to do the same. Halo was the director of the enterprise that consisted in spying on Gregory and she was his client. It was as simple as that. She had expected more questions about Gregory, but with Halo nothing was ever what it seemed or should be. His gaze lingered like a slow draw on a fine cigar and then he turned away, moving further and further into the darkness until his form was no longer visible. It was only then that she realized that he had not invited her to meet with his colleagues like he said he would. Did he forget or was it a deliberate oversight? She wanted to run after him and remind him, but something inside her grabbed hold of her. Or maybe it was just the pavement whispering to her again and for one reason or another he no longer wanted her to meet his colleagues, or had never wanted her to meet them in the first place. He had just said it for some reason she may never know.

She heard a young man shouting out something that sounded like a declaration of war. Then the voice faded away. It was time to go home. It was time to get back to the way things were before. Mace. Her job. Mace. Mace. Mace.

### Chapter 4.6

_It ain't over 'til it's over._ The lines were little more than a cliché, and a worn out one at that. She had heard it sung countless times over by the glitter-rock likes of singers from every generation, gender, and ethnicity; performances awash with day-glow nails, diamond-rimmed sunglasses and twinkly little smiles, snow-white teeth gleaming through the glare of Las Vegas stage lights. Johnny Enzyme was only the beginning; two plate glass mirrors angled down from the canopy of his bed, their myriad reflections cascading gently off into the trembling warm infinity stretched out before them as they made love deep into the night. _It ain't over 'til it's over_. The words massaged her temples, working through her soft white skin, the damp London air pampering her like a pair of velvet gloves on the rosy cheeks of a child. There he was. Standing a block away from her in the dark, now with a second man who seemed to have come from nowhere. It was becoming a theme in her life -- nowhere. Halo was there with the man; but the man wasn't just any man, he was an overweight man wearing a waist-length leather jacket. For some reason it seemed important. He had a long dark beard and clutched a Cuban style military cap in his hand. Sure, she had accidentally turned the wrong way and had no business standing where she was that instant. Halo had told her to go to the right, in the direction of the station, but she had ignored his instructions and turned to the left instead. Why? It seemed like a more interesting direction to go. In the cool white undertow of the moonlight the city appeared livelier, more jagged, dangerous, and introspective than it would if she had turned to the right. Left was a nineteen sixties jazz solo replete with manic saxophone wailings and snare drums crashing off to some crazed white oblivion, while right was a Sunday morning prayer hour sing along. The choice was simple. And the consequences were standing right in front of her. _Nothing was over until it was over_.

She edged closer to the two men, slipping quietly between a parked car and two bright circles of light etched on the pavement by the streetlights above. Halo was hunched over beside a wall next to a semi-circle of trees. From where she stood she could see both of their faces clearly. They were talking. She held her breath and tried to listen, but they were too far away; their whispers were softer than the gentle hiss of late night traffic coming from somewhere far away into the darkness of the city. Yet it could have equally been the sound of rushing water from some close but hidden river or the sound of her own ear ringing in the midnight air. She couldn't be sure. Halo pulled out an envelope – was it the envelope she had just given him? – from his jacket pocket and handed it to the man. He accepted it and slid it into his pants. At one point the man stepped back and held something up. It was a small object, perhaps the size of a jewelry box or purse, but it seemed to be a perfect square with no handles or straps attached. The man bent down and set it on the ground in front of him. They resumed their conversation and walked together out to the curb where a large sedan was parked. The man patted Halo on the back and then Halo saluted him. It was a gesture that she had never seen him do, one that implied possible military connections. Perhaps Halo had served in the British army with the same man many years ago. A car rushed by and a woman leaned out and shouted something that sounded desperate and angry, although the words were far too slurred to give Laura any inkling what she had said.

Laura ducked down beneath a bush. The glare of the headlights had given her enough time to hide from the men, lest they turn and look in the direction of the car, which slowed down as it passed them, and then lurched into motion, accelerating off into the darkness. When the car was no longer audible, she chanced a look at Halo and his accomplice, peaking above the bush for just long enough to catch a glimpse. To her surprise, there was now only one man: the stranger. Halo was gone: somehow he had managed to vanish as soon as the car had passed. Was he in the sedan that was parked at the side of the road? The man leaned down to pick up the square object and then started walking in her direction. She crouched low to the ground and froze in her posture. If the man saw her she would play drunk. If he came by, she would pretend to be vomiting in the bush. She sat still, watching the street through a small crack through the leaves while she listened to the approaching footsteps. They almost seemed to echo against the sky and come hammering down louder and louder with every step. When the man came into view, she could see from the streetlight that he was pale and blond, with narrow blue eyes and a flat sallow face. She could now see that he was wearing a long wool sweater that fell about six inches below the bottom rim of his leather jacket. He was staring at the pavement, apparently lost in thought. Laura swallowed slowly and quietly and crouched more tightly to the ground. The man stopped about fifteen feet in front of the bush as another car roared by. He put his hand in his pocket, looked down with mild aggravation, and moved his hand around inside as though he had lost something. He pulled his hand out and then searched the pockets of his jacket. When he was finished, he shook his head in disgust and turned around, walking back to the place from which Halo had just disappeared. Laura's body tensed. She lifted herself into a half-squat position so she could look over the top of the bush.

When the man was at the end of the block, she knifed out onto the sidewalk and quickly dropped into a crouch. Something inside her told her that she would regret it if she didn't get a closer look at the man's face. But there was always the danger that Halo would return and catch her loitering around suspiciously. What would she tell him? But, did it even matter? She had a right to be where she was, standing next to Crystal Palace Park by herself enjoying the soft minerality of the London night. And why should she be intimidated by Halo anyway? Perhaps something had changed during their last meeting. There was an element about him that she didn't trust, something that made her burn with questions. She was an independent woman, like Marlene Dietrich in _Dishonored_ , and would not allow herself to be manipulated by a bunch of political criminals the way Ingrid Bergman was in _Notorious_. What was she doing being ordered around by some languid fed who just wanted her to do his dirty work for a little extra money? She felt cheap and shallow, like the kind of white trash meth addicts she used to see standing in front of gas stations selling their bodies near the native reserves outside of Portland. That was what desperate women did, ones who had been used all their lives by men. That was what she was doing with Halo. Allowing him to use her, to pimp her out for a few pennies and a bag of white crystal.

Gaining courage, she walked with increasingly rapid steps towards the man, who had since turned around and was now approaching her from about a hundred yards away with a determination that was lacking in his first excursion down the street; perhaps he had found whatever it was he was looking for. His footsteps made a hard clicking sound, as if he was wearing tap dancing shoes that were disproportionately loud for their size. Just then a young couple appeared from around the corner directly across the street from her. It gave her a sense of security; the man was less dangerous with a couple walking close by. She looked down at the ground as he continued to approach, just keeping him in the upper periphery of her vision. Staring directly at him would arouse suspicion. He didn't seem to notice her and kept looking across the street at the couple. When he was about twenty feet away, she lifted her head as naturally as possible, as it would have seemed contrived not to look as he passed. Their eyes met immediately. It was almost as though he had been waiting all along for her to look. His eyes were not unfriendly. They held their own story, their own sense of weakness and warning. Like a dog's eyes, hoping to encounter a friend, but all the more ready to jump in self-defense at a potential enemy. A moment after their gazes had met and briefly locked – a time that spanned almost to infinity in her mind – she quickly turned her head away and pretended to look at the couple across the street. It was always dangerous to make prolonged eye contact with men you didn't know, especially at night. She had read that in France convicted rapists were using it as a successful defense; some had even got off with a fine and community service. If a woman looked at you, it meant she was inviting you to have sex with her in an alley or a car even if she said she wasn't interested and tried to resist your advances with pepper spray and ear-piercing screams. Because of this, women were being warned all across France never to look at men or they would only have themselves to blame if something bad happened to them. As the man passed she felt a breeze across her eyelashes. She continued walking straight ahead, past a small stone fence marking the boundaries of an outdoor pub garden, and then a series of brick row houses. It would be a mistake to look back. The man might be standing their waiting for her to turn and if their eyes met a second time, she would have no more excuses or claims of innocence to set her free. She made her way to the top of a hill where three Tandoori houses stood in a row, each one uniquely decorated and seeming to hold its own against the others, and then continued down towards a residential area. She looked up at a sign shaped like an arrow. It was pointing in the direction she was already walking and read "City Centre". She continued walking until she was in a neighborhood called Dulwich that seemed indistinguishable from Crystal Palace. By the time she was in Stockwell, there were signs every half block for Victoria. As she crossed the Thames she looked at her watch for the first time since before she met Halo. It was almost two a.m. and the streets were virtually empty, although she guessed people would be coming out of clubs soon and downtown London would once again spring to life. Her room wasn't far. She wanted to sleep. She was alone. When she got back to the bed and breakfast the lights in the lobby were off. She felt guilty, like a teenager sneaking in after a party, as she quietly made her way through the darkness and opened the door to the bathroom.

When Laura woke up her room was filled with a cold gray light. She opened the window and met the first breath of morning. It was too warm to be December. Although it was overcast, the air was soft and fragrant, balmy, even lush, and there were tiny daffodils popping up from squares of earth in front of crumbling brick houses and picturesque antique businesses: a cheese shop, an ironmongers, and a traditional pub with a sign that showed a man wearing a suit of armor made of leaves. The figure was carrying a stick and was chasing a woman through a forest.

She showered and dressed. She had one day before she had to go back to New York and she thought it would be nice to spend it walking around the city center taking in the sights and getting a feel for "British culture".

On her way out she met the concierge. "Hello, Madam," he said with a Polish accent. "I hope everything was to your liking." His voice was exaggeratedly polite with an undercurrent of sarcasm, as though he was mocking her on his assumption she was a rich American who was used to a life of comfort and luxury.

"Wonderful," she replied naturally. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction of appearing irked by his tone. "Much nicer than what you would get for the same price back in New York."

The man widened his eyes in surprise. "Most Americans complain when they stay here."

"Really? I can't see why," she replied. Then she made her way to the front hall and opened the door. A small flock of pigeons had gathered near the entrance. She walked out to the sidewalk; the birds were strangely oblivious to her passage as they continued pecking away at invisible specks on the pavement.

She wandered two blocks down the street and stopped at a small French café for breakfast. She ordered a croissant and an espresso and picked up a copy of the day's newspaper that was sitting at the table beside her.

"For here or to go?" the woman behind the counter asked.

"For here," she said. Then her eyes drifted up to the price list. Everything was more expensive if you wanted to stay and eat it there.

She paid and went back to her table. The day's news looked no different from that of any other day. On the front page there was a report about US-Russian relations and a new ballistics treaty. In the top corner stood a column summarizing the most important football scores: Leeds 3, Fullham 1; Manchester 1, Arsenal 0. Crystal Palace was not even mentioned. She worked her way to the fourth page, where she stopped on a picture of a man wearing a white scarf and large sunglasses balanced on his forehead. Although he was dressed differently, his facial features looked disturbingly similar to the man she had seen the night before with Halo. It was something about his dark innocent eyes. His mouth was hanging open as though he was in mid speech. The headline read "Russian Militant and Hacker Still at Large." She read on. His name was Nikolai Vasiliev and he was wanted for apparent connections to ISIS cells in Chechnya and possibly Europe. The article went on to say that he was reported to have entered Britain a month ago and that police were currently tracing his whereabouts.

She turned her gaze away from the page and looked blankly in the direction of the cash register. Something was wrong. She felt bad inside. Although she couldn't be sure he was the same man who had met with Halo the night before, something inside her told her there had to be some connection. Why didn't Halo ask her to come down to the station? If he was a legitimate intelligence officer why was he meeting a man in a park so late at night? There was always the chance that he was following the man hoping to infiltrate his network, but if that was the case why would the police release an article stating that they knew he was in London and they were looking for his whereabouts? It would blow their cover. There was no way that any sane militant would allow a western man like Halo close to his operations if he knew he was being watched. She put the newspaper down and took a quick, self-conscious sip of her espresso. It was richer and more aromatic than the Starbucks version she was used to, sending a wave of exhilaration through her body. And she needed it to be that way.

The rest of the day she did her best to quell any suspicions and enjoy London. She visited Trafalgar Square, the National Gallery and Buckingham Palace. She took the Underground to Oxford Circus to go to a restaurant recommended in a tourist guide she picked up at an information kiosk. But when she got off the train, the station was so crowded she decided she would rather go somewhere quieter. So she took the Underground back to her bed and breakfast. This time the concierge was still awake. It was hardly the wild night in London one might expect from _the first woman of the twenty first century_ , but it was the best she could do. Wasn't being involved in international espionage enough? The man looked at her with downcast eyes as she hurried by the counter to her room. The bed had not yet been made, but she tossed the blanket aside and collapsed on the mattress anyway. In her exhausted state she wondered if the unmade room was some kind of revenge for her not responding properly to his criticisms of American tourists.

As she was about to fall asleep, she heard a fog horn – or was it a low-pitched train whistle, she really couldn't tell – and was suddenly taken by a feeling that Gregory was in danger and would come to some harm. It was an emotion that tore her up with guilt and made her feel it was her foremost duty to protect him from whatever impending peril was surely coming to him. In an attempt to stoke the fires of some sense of inner comfort, she clutched desperately to the mental image of her holding hands with Mace in her apartment, but it always seemed to give way, break apart, fly asunder into the recesses of her mind, lost in the mental echoes of the sharp cacophony of the city's late night sounds. She longed for a cold aluminum cup filled with cheap bourbon in the back of an abandoned train with Tünde and Star. She longed for the hot and brilliant kisses of Johnny Enzyme. She longed for her own bed back in New York, matted with the warmth and security she had long since left behind in favor of what had slowly turned from naive promise to some kind of bold indifferent existence she had yet to come to grips with. But none of it came. Her mind only raced from one guilt-ridden thought to another as its images wove through the dark din and clatter of London's labyrinthine streets and burrows.

With much effort she eventually fell asleep, but only after twice getting up to pack her suitcase and set the alarm clock on the bedside table. In her sleep she gradually became aware of herself sleeping, and also aware of the fact that she was still somewhat alert, and for that reason could not really be sleeping. Her last thought before she lost all consciousness was that she should not have come to England in the first place. In being involved with Halo she had slipped away from everything that was decent and pure in her life and was now on the path of boundless chimera without so much as a glimmer of Byzantium to keep her company. There were no pink lights in this town.

## BOOK 5

### Chapter 5.1

A steel gray Mercedes tore around the corner, its moon-roof hood and alloy hubcaps sparkling with the very essence of power and corruption. On the surface of its smoky windows flickered hand-held-video-exposé reflections of the thousands of faces that normally passed by unnoticed every morning in the rush hour traffic, each one telling its own grim story without ever really telling it. Yes, Gregory thought, the world was getting more interesting. People were kissing under bridges again. People were drinking champagne from their shoes again. People were falling in love again. He tossed a small pebble in the direction of the Mercedes as it rocketed off into the distance and watched it bounce away into the gutter as the car vanished into the oil spill mirage of Park Avenue. Things were going his way at last. Money was coming his way. Love was coming his way. Laura might be playing hard to get, but it wouldn't be long before she gave in. The good ones always took a little more time. He was ready for anything.

What was his next move? He would surprise her. Women loved surprises. Everyone knew surprises made things more exciting. Flowers were an obvious choice. That was an easy one. There was really no other option. He would send her flowers. Even better, he would leave them in front of her door so that when she got back she would find them sitting there as a statement that he had been thinking about her while he was waiting for her to return his last message and wanted her to know that. A large dreamy bouquet filled with fresh cut classics and seasonal selections. A snip of this, a bundle of that: the very essence of love. He walked down Fifth Avenue in search of a florist. He had once seen one in the neighborhood, but he couldn't remember exactly where. The great thing about New York was that if you came back looking for a place you hadn't been to for a long time, you would either find it was still there or discover that it had closed down and been replaced by something even better. He stopped in front of a Swiss watch store, its window display a hall of mirrors replete with giant gold gears and axles spinning away in perfect concert like a toy land ballet. There was a waft of perfume in the air and a woman wearing a leopard skin coat brushed up against him, the bridge of her matching leopard print resin sunglasses balanced precariously on the end of her nose. She was beautiful. Any other day he might have stopped her and talked to her, spinning a funnel web of charm in her direction to finesse away her phone number, but today he had other things on his mind. Things like Laura.

A block further down he chanced upon a flower shop he had never noticed before, proving his theory that Manhattan never let you down when you were on a hunt for something special. He walked in. The air smelled of steam and lavender, a scent he associated with spiritual bookstores, the type that stocked prisms and incense with miniature waterfalls gurgling in the back room and wind chimes hanging from every ceiling hook to remind you that Buddha or whoever your prayed for was never too far away for comfort. He ordered the largest bouquet they had from the tiny crumpled woman at the counter. She just stood there nodding in anticipation as he pointed from one varietal to the next, specifying exactly what he wanted. While she was wrapping up the arrangement, he took out the slip of paper that he had written her address on – transcribed from the phone book the night before when he went through all the L. Chains in the city to match the phone number she gave him with the address beside it in the book – and asked to have the flowers sent to the building care of "the concierge". Most Manhattan apartments had a porter at the front entrance and the bouquet was better left in safe hands than on the floor in front of her door. It was a gesture that was sure to tantalize her, proving in a resounding way that he was indeed the man she was waiting for.

Gregory percolated with satisfaction as he walked home. While he had never been a pure Romeo, writing endless love letters on his sleeve while he begged for the affection of some woman who could never accept him, he had never been a true womanizer either. The world's leading womanizers were like its greatest sports stars – they made the best of whatever opportunities they had. Did you ever see Cristiano Ronaldo snub his nose at the chance to poke in a garbage goal from the edge of the box? No. And likewise, when the discotheques cleared out and the lights turned on at four in the morning, did you ever see a true womanizer turn down the final dregs of the evening? No. But while they never fell in love, they rarely got the best girls either. The most beautiful women were always tough slugging. The best woman knew they were hot and demanded a little work before they gave in. The real heartbreakers were pampered so much by their relatives and admirers they would never give in to a few cheap lines at four in the morning. Just as the majority of Ronaldo's goals were scarcely highlight reel material, few of the women the true womanizers got their paws on would ever be captured striding down the catwalks of Milan. And when they ever did score with a beautiful woman, she was more often than not a casualty of life, one of those feline tramps that came wandering in from the rain after years of parental abuse leading ultimately to a troubled life of cocaine, late-night tears, and empty sex. On the scale of womanizers and romantics Gregory placed himself at center left, just barely in favor of the romantic, but not so much in favor that he would let his life swing into the gutter over a cause of lost love for too long. He knew the truth. You had to pay your dues to have a crack at the true gems of the female sex, and that was all there was to it.

When he got home he tossed off his shadow plaid _Dsquared2_ jacket and went to his desk. He turned on his computer and logged into his Credit Lyonnais account. When the numbers stopped flooding the screen and the prompt symbol came up, he entered the Starlight code. It was always important to follow up a large cash transfer to make sure it went through smoothly and wasn't blocked by some unseen bank or intercepted by the FBI. The money was always skimmed off from fluctuations in exchange rates, which were so erratic over the course of a day nobody could ever tell the difference anyway. All you had to do was synchronize the dump off with a high point in the daily fluctuation and then catch the cool millions that evaporated off the top when the currency fell and you got your money back. The best thing was that you didn't even have to use your own money. You could just borrow someone else's for a few hours and pay them back when you were done. And that's where the Carrier came in. He found all the hacking codes and the exact times of the big money transfers. He even found out which corrupt dictatorship or crooked accountant was transferring money and exactly when they were going to do it. It was set up so beautifully it could never fail. All you had to do was temporarily intercept it, dump off high, buy back low, and then keep the difference. Martha Stewart had nothing on the Carrier. The screen jerked for a second and then went blank. A few seconds later it lit up again on a web site for a strip bar showing a naked woman with cat's whiskers painted on her face. She was holding a sign over her breasts that read "A shower an hour". He typed in the Starlight code a second time, and once again the screen went dead. Just as he was about to reboot the computer the screen lit up again. This time it showed an old photograph of Doris Day cuddling a white Chihuahua in her arms. There was snow on the ground and there were three Israeli tanks looming in the background. Something was wrong. He tried once more, but this time the computer simply locked up. He picked up his cell phone to call the bank. They would know. Who needed the stupid Internet anyway? It was only a convenient way of eluding detection for illegal cash transfers. It was best to avoid talking to his personal manager for the time being. All he needed was the balance. That would be easy enough. That much would settle his nerves.

He dialed zero to avoid the automated touch-tone banking service and a woman's voice materialized jinn-like other end of the line. It was coldly detached and echoed in the background hiss of semi-silence.

"Yes, sir?"

"I need some account information."

"That's fine, sir. Are you using a touch tone phone?"

"Yes," he answered.

"Can you punch in your access code on the dial pad followed by the hash tag?"

He punched in the numbers and waited. She sniffled once and then there was a sound rearranging papers on a desk. In his mind she was sitting in front of a giant blue screen receiving the numbers in real time as he typed them in.

"OK, sir. A few personal details. I'll need your driver's license number, your home phone number, and your mother's maiden name."

He provided the requested information, and she replied with an encouraging "yes" after each successful delivery.

"Now, sir. What was it exactly you needed to know?"

"I just wanted the balance."

"Thirteen cents, sir," she said. Gregory gasped. Suddenly he was falling down a deep dark shaft, reaching out for something to hold on. But there was nothing. With the recent transfer it should have had at least ten million. Although her tone was exactly the same, he couldn't help but feel a note of condescension in her voice. Or was it just his anxiety that made him feel that way?

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yes."

"That doesn't sound right." There was a sharp cramp in his stomach. He was in trouble. He bit into his lip. The money was gone, and he was helpless to do anything about it. Drawing any attention to the details of the transfer would be obvious suicide. But if he just sat back and did nothing, he would never get the money back. Even though the Carrier always said that the money would be transferred legitimately, in a way that would never arouse any suspicion, Gregory was still afraid of saying something that might expose certain details that could incriminate him. It wasn't what you said when you were convicted, but how you said it. That's how lie detectors worked and that's how the FBI worked.

"Is there anything else, sir?"

He paused for a moment, struggling with his urge to probe for further details. It had to be a mistake. It was best to wait and ask the Carrier. Perhaps the money had been transferred into a second account for security, in order to hide it from an impending investigation, before it was slipped back into the Starlight account.

"That's fine," he said with shaky optimism, as though to compensate for any doubt he might have projected into their conversation. "Thanks." He hung up and looked back into the screen of his computer, which had since come on again and was showing a picture of Patty Hearst carrying a baby in her arms with the broken elbow of a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. Was nothing sacred anymore?

A warm bead of sweat formed on his forehead and then became cold, dripping down over his eyebrow and falling onto the table in front of him. Then a second bead. And a third. Something had happened. He had to call the Carrier. He had to find out what was going on before it got any worse. He unbuttoned his collar and picked up his i-phone and dialed. After three rings there was an answer. It was a woman's voice giggling as though she had just witnessed something on the extreme side of slapstick, like a cake springing up from the table and hitting Ronald Reagan in the face.

"Hello," she said, her laughter dying down to a soft purr.

"Yes," said Gregory.

"Who are you?" She started giggling again.

"Where is the Carrier?"

There was an abrupt silence and then a sound like something heavy falling off a table and hitting the floor.

"Hello," a male voice crept in. The Carrier, at last. In the background he could still hear the woman talking. She was saying something about how she was upset that the Carrier never paid attention to her. All Gregory could hear were a few broken sentences. _You are never around when I feel like doing something...I saw you by the airport shoe shine booth with that girl again...why do you always hang around with people that look like they just got out of jail?_

"There's a problem."

"It better be important. I'm in Belize. They have overnight rooms in the airport here." He heard the sound of a woman crying in the background - was it the same one? Then there was silence.

"There's no money in the account. I checked a few minutes ago. It's all gone."

"Are you being tapped or bugged? Has anyone been in your apartment?"

"No," he answered. He thought of Laura on his couch, but he didn't want to say anything. The Carrier would suspect her immediately. He didn't want that. She was innocent. She was pure. Only criminals set up their loved ones.

"What do you know? Where did the money go? When? What time did it vanish? And into which account? Who authorized the transfer? You have to find all of these things out."

"I wanted to wait until I talked to you before I did anything. I didn't want to make anyone suspicious."

"We'll have to proceed carefully. The best thing to do is wait until you get your statement from Credit Lyonnais. Then see what you can come up with and get back to me before you do anything. If you call the bank back and complain you might arouse suspicion."

In the background the woman started giggling again. "Aren't you finished yet?" he heard her ask. Her laughter became louder until there was a sound like a struggle. There was a loud knock and the laughter subsided. Then there was a click and the line went dead. Gregory put his i-phone back in his pocket and took a long sip of warm Champaign left over from the night before. The world was suddenly ugly, and a thousand glasses of Bollinger couldn't make it any better.

### Chapter 5.2

Laura stepped out of the taxi onto the sidewalk in front of her apartment. As she carried her suitcase through the shrub-lined walkway leading up to the main entrance, one thought continued to expand in her head like a plutonium rod in a nuclear reactor, threatening meltdown at any second -- one small, but cataclysmic thought. _Once the tap was open, you can't close it_. It's not because you're physically incapable of turning the knob on the faucet. It's because something inside you just won't let you shut it off. And at the end of the day, when the rats are fighting for the last scrap of food in the alleyway, it's exactly the same thing. Desperation. Once people are involved, it's exactly the same thing. Laura never believed it before, but she was finally starting to... _you just can't stop it_. The lover can't stop chasing their object of desire. The lover can't stop loving who ever it is he or she loves. Only death can stop it. Only death could stop Laura. But could it really stop love? Could it stop her from wanting Gregory to love her even though she already said a thousand times she didn't want him to? In the end, nobody can stop longing for whatever it is they're secretly longing for as long as they continue hurtling towards wherever it is they think they are going, but are really not so sure. _You just can't stop it_.

Laura walked past the porter and he smiled generously, as though he enjoyed sharing the evidence for his perfect dental hygiene record.

"And the young lady had a good time in Europe?"

"Yes, thank you," she said. "I wish I could have stayed longer." She smiled warmly. No one had called her a young lady for longer than she could remember. It made her happy to be back in America. In London people had less to say, and what it was they had to say was never very personal, or at least it never seemed that way.

"That's what they always say when they get back. But what they really mean is that there's no place like home." He bent down behind the front desk and when he came up he was holding a bouquet of flowers. It was so large it could have passed for a bush in a small garden. "As I was saying, there's no place like home." He tipped his hat and handed her the bouquet.

"My goodness," she exclaimed. "I hardly just stepped off the plane. I wasn't expecting..." With some trepidation, she pulled a small envelope out from between a cluster of stems. She struggled to think of who might have sent them. What would she do if they were from someone she didn't know, or someone she knew but didn't care for? How could she thank the person without hurting his feelings? It was a situation she never liked, but one she accepted as a part of being a woman in the modern world. Men never had to turn down outlandish gestures of love and admiration. Men never had to risk being called "a bitch" for not jumping into bed with every last person that bought them a box of chocolates or a bunch of flowers. Men just got to walk away.

"Is there anything I can do?" the porter asked gently, sensing her uneasiness. "I never bought a woman flowers and had her jump into my arms. But what else is there to show a woman you care?"

"I can think of lots of things," she said. Then she smiled and walked towards the elevator. The porter followed with her suitcase. He set it down in front of a standing ashtray beside the elevator.

"I can take it from here," she said. She tipped him and stepped into the elevator with her suitcase.

Once she had unpacked, she bit her lip and reached for the card. It was in a pink envelope in the center of a bunch of orange tropical flowers. Although she had never thought of herself as a flower person – maybe an incense or tattoo girl – there was something about the gesture that intrigued her. However uncomfortable she felt as she held the envelope in her hands, she also felt a certain degree of excitement, as though a door had been opened in her life that would lead to new apogees of experience and adventure - for better or worse - that had previously been unknown to her, but would become just as important to her later in life as her experiences with Johnny Enzyme, Tünde, and Star were to her today. She opened the envelope slowly, using her thumbnail as a blade, and pulled out the sheet of faded translucent green stationary.

"Dear Laura," it said, "I hope you have been well. Call me when you have time. I'd like to go out again. Affectionately yours, Gregory."

When she let the note drop from her hand her first impulse was that the flowers were an affront to her personal freedom, a kind of barrier erected in her life that would have to be maneuvered around, its guards and sentries outwitted or paid off in the darkness of the night in order for her to reach the neutral zone of her resolve. When she left Halo in the park she had made a promise to herself that it was over and that she was going to let her life return to normal once she returned to New York. To have any further involvement in the situation would be dangerous. She once saw a television news feature about a quiet married FBI officer who worked as a file clerk for twenty years and then turned out to be one of the most dangerous Soviet spies in history. What made the story particularly chilling was that the man was a churchgoer and had installed a secret closed circuit TV in his bedroom so his old friend – a Vietnam war vet who was enrolled in a Ph.D. program somewhere in Germany – could watch him and his wife having sex whenever he visited. And when he was finally arrested and sentenced to life in prison the Soviets admitted that they had used the man, pretending to be his closest friend because they figured out as soon as they met him that he was a lonely and desperate person yearning to reach out to anybody that showed even the slightest amount of concern for him. They said that was why he had allowed his friend to watch him and his wife; it was his way of showing his friend that he was "one of the boys" and wasn't a "sissy". The agent's wife apparently still visited him every day in jail where he was said to have written the Russians several times inquiring about possible escape scenarios, ways to leave jail, the US, and his wife all in one sweep. What was especially sad about the story is that the Russians never replied and the man died in jail still believing they were his friends and the FBI was intercepting their responses to his letters.

She undressed and showered, letting the hot water warm and massage her cold stiff muscles, still swollen from the flight. How different it was from the shower she had in the small bed and breakfast near Victoria Station. She was happy to be home. She dried herself with a fresh towel that was sitting folded in her bathroom closet and went into her bedroom to take a nap. As she drifted off to sleep she felt sure about her decision and more than capable of pulling herself together enough to keep her life going in the right direction. In her sleep she became aware of lying on the bed. Her limbs hurt and her chest felt hot and heavy. After what seemed like an eternity of rolling around in her bed she finally descended into a deeper sleep, a state in which dreams were permitted, and were even abundant and free flowing, like songs from an Italian opera or a cascade of water falling from a cliff. Most of the dreams were images of things she had encountered over the past few days but had not consciously registered. There was a small spotted dog that had been barking at a child with a ball under a tree somewhere in London. There were street signs – so many of them – peeling away as though she were driving through a massive city center or down some enchanted dusty highway. And there were the faces of the three stewardesses on the flight back to New York asking her if she wanted more peanuts or pretzels. At one point she got up to go to the bathroom, realizing in her seemingly drugged state that it was now dark outside, and then returned into the same stream of images she had left behind as though someone had just pressed the pause button on the video machine of her dreams. Yet when these dreams slowed and eventually stopped, she found herself in an empty room with Halo standing under a bright light questioning her. In the corner Gregory was sobbing as though he had just lost something important – perhaps a loved one – and that she was somehow responsible. However much she wanted to help him, she couldn't. Halo kept glaring at her with disgust for letting her emotions get the better of her; he was angry because she had let him down. Halo then turned into Gregory and started laughing. A moment later Mace walked into the room with a man that looked like Halo, but he kept insisting his name was Ray and that he was coming over to reward her for her honesty. When she woke up she could hear a fight out in the street. She guessed it was a little past two because the fights usually only happened when the bars started to shut down and clear out.

Laura parted her hair with her index finger. She was almost ashamed of the simplicity of the symbolism of her dream. She had always taken herself to have dreams that were too complex for interpretation, ones she could brag about while all the other women she knew talked about their much more commonplace dreams, ones in which they received new lingerie from secret admirers or spent the day at the beautician's having their nails done. Laura was _the first woman of the twenty-first century_ and her dreams had always been a perfect reflection of this. Was this yet another sign that she was growing old? Did old people dream about moving refrigerators and depositing money in banks? That's what she had always thought. But something else bothered her far more: in her mind she could still see Gregory slumped over in the corner sobbing. She wanted to go over and help him. She wanted to be able to love him. She turned the light on and reread the message he had written. It was perfectly harmless and even sensitive, obviously written by someone capable of deep feelings for another human being. What did Halo know about Gregory anyway? She had only assumed he was a criminal because of what Halo had said, but after what had happened in London with Halo meeting the second man she didn't know who to trust anyway.

When she slipped back into bed she felt completely at ease with her "new" new resolve: she would allow Gregory to be her friend. She would avoid further contact with Halo and tell Gregory about Mace as soon as possible. That way she would be fair to everyone who deserved it. And to avoid any trouble from the police or MI6, she would make sure she never told Gregory or Mace about Halo and the details of her "mission". That way everything would go back to normal in as natural a way as possible. She rearranged her head a few times on her pillow before the thought of Gregory being arrested for money laundering resurfaced. She struggled with this notion for a few minutes before deciding that if he was in fact arrested, then she had no reason to feel guilty about it because she would have been justified in doing what she did, even if playing with his feelings were her means of accomplishing her job. Or at least this is what she told herself, without knowing if she fully believed it, as she lay in bed trying to fall back to sleep.

The next morning she woke up, the long string of shifting resolves from the previous night now just a haze in her mind. She washed her face, noticing that she looked a lot younger than she had felt over the past few months. Her skin was pale, yet not in an unhealthy way, displaying an almost aristocratic sense of refinement, and her eyes were bright and lively. She walked slowly into the kitchen, allowing her legs to loosen up by stopping to stretch every couple of strides. Her muscles were always stiff when she first got out of bed. As she sat down and nursed a cup of coffee she went over those important things that she had to do over the next few days: buy groceries (top on the list), get back to work (hopefully tomorrow), call Mace (unless he called first, but tonight at the latest). By the time she got to the obvious, her eyes were already fixed on the petals of the bouquet that was lying within the radius of her gaze. Her confusion from the night before once again emerged, surrounding her like a circle of soldiers on horseback, their guns all pointed straight ahead as though shooting her was important enough to risk a stray bullet hitting one of their compatriots on the other side. But this time she wasn't about to give in like she had the night before. In the sober light of morning Laura arrived at the same conclusion as she did the night before. Call Gregory. Make friends. Be honest. Forget Halo. Call Mace. She had to get back to Mace.

Just as she was about to take another shower the phone rang. At first she didn't want to pick it up, but then she decided it was better if she did. That way she could get whatever it was out of the way and avoid any procrastination which could only lead to further confusion and indecision.

"My dear," the voice said. Then there was a rich hearty laughter like a pirate from a Walt Disney movie. It was Mace. She was taken by surprise. "You're back from the never-never."

"I was going to call you," she said.

"I bet you were. I bet you didn't think of me once while you were away. But, the joke's on you. The English are a total bust in bed. It's all that beer and whiskey. Every woman I've ever spoken to says so. Sure they're refined, eloquent, and educated. What else do you expect? If you grew up watching Oliver Twist twenty four hours a day maybe you'd be the same."

"Don't be silly. You know how I feel about you."

"I can hear it, but I can't feel it..." He started laughing again.

"I was going to call you."

"You were saying. I'm over here with a guy named Louis who drinks nothing but non-alcoholic beer. Don't you Louis?" he hollered away from the phone.

Laura shook her head and looked away from the phone. Although she had never met this "Louis", she never trusted men who drank non-alcoholic beer. They were worse than men that drank too much. It was the methadone of the booze world and the people who drank it were dangerous, or at least they used to be or they wouldn't be drinking it. They were like men in handcuffs just hoping you didn't give them the keys to escape out of fear of what they might do once they were free.

"When are you coming by?" she asked.

"What are you doing tonight?"

"I might fall asleep early. I've never been abroad before, but they say that jet lag makes you fall asleep in the middle of the day while also keeping you up all night. A narcoleptic insomniac – just what you need."

"That's fine. I feel more like a quiet romantic night anyway. It's been a long time since I was over. I think I might just come by with a nice bottle of wine and a few old records and let the evening take off from there. Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood. _Some Velvet Morning_. How does that sound?"

"After dinner, then? I have to get groceries."

"Sure. I'll be by at eight."

When Laura hung up she breathed a great sigh of relief. In the midst of all her guilt, she had never expected Mace to approach her with such an accepting frame of mind. It was a good omen. Her life might actually be redeemable. Superstitious or not, it was enough to convince her. Since her early teens hanging around in Portland smoke shops she had always had a fascination for objects of foreign charm like opium weights and carved ebony jewelry. It was a hint of the romantic in her that always wanted her to believe in things like good luck and being born under a bad sign. In this case she was happy to think that the Gods – whoever or whatever they were – were showing her that everything was going to be fine by sending Mace to her in a good mood. Yet as she wrapped her fingers around the base of the bouquet, she had a strange feeling she was going to need a lot more such blessings to really get her life back to normal. Once things started you just couldn't stop them. She was suddenly awash in a chorus of pink light and thought she could see a minaret swaying somewhere in the distance. Would they, too, never stop? Byzantium. To the end of the world, Byzantium.

### Chapter 5.3

Gregory picked up his i-phone and paused for a moment, staring with blank trepidation into the screen as though it held a recorded death threat just waiting to be played back. His mind was fixed on two completely unrelated, but somehow intimately correlated things: where the money had gone and what would Laura think of the flowers. If somehow the money turned up and Laura jumped into his arms and declared her endless love for him, he would be the happiest man alive. Yet if Laura loved him and the money vanished, the _New Finance_ would fall through, his life would crumble and Laura would eventually lose interest in him anyway. If he got the money back but Laura eschewed him in favor of a different man, he would end up blowing the money on cheap women and overpriced Cognac to drown his sorrows. The thought of lying naked in bed as he sipped from a glass of the world's greatest vintage of Remy Martin with a woman who wasn't Laura was something he wasn't even prepared to entertain.

He mustered up his courage and dialed.

"Hello?" Laura answered. She was wearing earphones as she chopped an onion. It made her feel more at ease to be doing something simple and useful while in the midst of conversation.

"Hello," replied Gregory. He stretched out on his couch and took a small sip from his glass of Sancerre.

"Sorry I didn't return your call. I just got back from London last night. I fell asleep almost immediately and didn't wake up until the next day."

"London? How was it?" he asked with a mixture of surprise and disappointment. "You never told me you were going..."

"I don't know," she answered. "It was kind of not what I thought it would be. Everything was slower. Which was good at first. You could see it in people's faces and gestures. No one was in a hurry to do anything. But after a while that started to bother me. At first it seemed like a more relaxed and even spiritual way of life, but once the false fronts evaporated it started to look like a more negative and defeatist approach. Pull away from life because it will only ruin and corrupt you, rather than take life more slowly so as to smell the roses and get more out of it."

"But you had fun?" He felt more at ease, allowing his mind to wander to their previous conversation about pheromones and some of his related investment opportunities. For a moment it seemed everything was back to normal. He wondered what she smelled like wearing _Apoca-Lips Now_ and if they were working on a Geiger counter plug in for _4-Players_. He heard her sniffle and the bubble popped.

"Oh, of course," she replied defensively. On the west coast it was always taken as a sign of weakness to complain about any mishaps abroad. People who came back from trips to places like Cambodia, Tibet, or Peru complaining about how they were robbed by bandits or fell seriously ill from the drinking water were always viewed with contempt. They had become too comfortable in their cushy western lifestyle and couldn't get by without its capitalist props and luxury items. To be accepted by the world-wise intelligentsia in places like Portland you had to act tough in the face of international travel. You had to act like you craved nothing more in the world than the chance to give up your bloated American lifestyle and live like the rest of the world. "I didn't have much time, but it was certainly worth it. Maybe if I stayed longer it would seem more normal and New York would seem like the crazy place."

Laura's voice soothed him. In the tone and the gait, the iambic subtleties of the inflections, he could sense that she had received the flowers and loved them. They were probably sitting right in front of her wafting their indescribable magic through the room. "I haven't been for quite a while. I remember going to Kew Gardens once when I was a child."

"That's the royal gardens, isn't it?" She paused and then he paused, as though he had become for that moment her exact spiritual reflection. The bait was lying right in front of her. Kew. It had come out accidentally, but its implications were inevitable. In the silence something grew between them and touched. He knew what she was thinking about and she knew what he was thinking about.

"The flowers were lovely," she said at last. "Much nicer than Kew would have been. The doorman gave them to me when I came back."

"I picked them myself," he said. Then he paused, wondering if this made him into the sort of man she could only mother and feel sorry for. "At the store, I mean. I pointed to them and the lady made the bouquet."

"They're wonderful. You have good taste."

"I was thinking..." He paused for a moment, reflecting on the fact that the she had been reduced to a disembodied sequence of sound waves, the sum of which built up an almost comical image of her in his mind – a giant floating head against an infinite black background. "Maybe we could go out for lunch. Or maybe even dinner." He was propelled by a sudden rocket blast of confidence. Lunch was an innocent meeting over health food and diet Coke with talk of business and the day's most newsworthy events. Dinner was a deep probe into the heart of catharsis, a yacht launch onto the rivers of the great velvet unknown, basking beneath the soft milk of the stars, the warmth and invention of its wondrous thoughts and hidden feelings set free by mother night.

"Yes," she said with graceful temperance that was obviously holding back so much more. If she had said it with a lascivious purr in her voice it wouldn't have been anywhere near as enticing.

"Yes? Is that dinner or lunch?" he asked.

"I think I'll be quite busy getting back to work over the next few weeks. Maybe dinner will be better." She stretched out her legs and shut her eyes. It would give her the chance to explain to him how she felt about him while making it clear that she was seeing Mace. If she just took him out to lunch, then it would seem cheap and cold. Shoddy. Five years ago she probably would have said yes to get rid of him and then stood him up. That was what she did when she felt a guy was pushing her too hard. But that's what she was learning: life rounded out the edges, made you less daring, softer, less dangerous. Age made everyone wiser, and in the end wisdom made everyone drab and innocuous. _You just can't stop it, once it starts to happen_. If people could be put into some cryogenic sleep during their teens and their twenties there would be no more war. But there would also be no more love, art, or invention. Everyone would be reasonable and everyone would make choices that were best for all concerned. What made old people bitter were wounds sustained in their teens and twenties that were never mended or even acknowledged. But was that any worse than the complete boredom that went along with being old and wise? Aging. _You just couldn't stop it_.

"How about _Mannequins_?"

_"Mannequins_?" She had read about it in the _NYMag_. It was meant to be the sort of place that high-tuition business school graduates flocked to for the precocious wine list and incomparable veal offerings. It wasn't her kind of restaurant, but she had always been curious to see how it matched up to the billing. And if she paid for her own dinner, she could ease any sense of guilt from her conscience.

"I'd cook for you again, but I've been too busy this week at work on an important project and I haven't had the chance to go shopping. We can go back to my place later if you want."

Laura didn't say anything. Against the growing silence Gregory became aware of the sound of the heater humming in the background. It was a sound you normally didn't notice until it stopped, the sudden aural clarity coming as a minor revelation. Yet in this case it took the form of a thousand voices gargling out whatever it was that Laura might be thinking. What was contained in the silence? Was it a refusal, a hint of consideration, or something else of which he had yet no inkling?

"Sure," she said. "I think tomorrow would be good. I'll look forward to it. I've always wondered what _Mannequins_ was like."

Tomorrow sounded fine to Gregory. He agreed to meet her at eight by the bench in front of the restaurant. It was better to go in as a couple, especially given what had happened last time he went, when he got stood up and ended up going home with the woman at the table beside him. If he went in alone and waited for Laura, the staff would suspect she was a call girl. And if the same girl was there as last time, she might come over to join him while he was waiting for Laura. Yes, going in as a couple was the best strategy. That way there would be no misunderstandings or unforeseen blunders.

When Laura met Gregory outside of _Mannequins_ , he was sitting down on the bench as expected reading the newspaper. Pork bellies were down, but industrials had a banner day. The Dow Jones was malingering and the forecast for the third quarter was looking more and more positive. He looked up to find her standing right in front of him. She was wearing a wide rimmed hat and a maroon dress that fell loosely to her knees. It was a much more classic look he had never seen in her, but always knew existed. It was the Laura of the French Cabaret or Antwerp Gardens, rather than the Laura of the Upper West Side. He set the paper down and stood up earnestly. A bus drove by, the nimble fingers of its slipstream wrenching her hat half way off her head before she had a chance to right it.

"You look terrific," he complimented her. "That British fog has done you some good."

"Thanks," she said. She straightened her hat and smiled generously. "I hope you haven't been waiting long."

They walked into the restaurant in presumptive silence, allowing the Maitre d' to escort them to their table with all the usual introductory overtures, to which they responded in parallel by looking at each other and nodding before looking back at him and then nodding a second time. He took them to a table just a few steps from the kitchen entrance. Gregory allowed Laura to seat herself, and then followed by taking the second chair. It was the age of the independent woman and if you wanted your life to be as modern as your stock portfolio, you had to give them some space and let them choose first.

The Maitre d' offered Gregory the wine list and bowed as he took a small step backwards. "I will be back in a second," he announced with a supercilious lisp. Then he vanished into the kitchen.

A lugubrious expression expanded across Laura's face. She suddenly became older and sterner, the sort of woman Gregory would never be interested in.

He opened the leather-bound volume and browsed through its thick parchment until he came up with something that seemed like a reasonable bet: Lignier Clos de La Roche 1990. The review was written in elegant italics below the price: "a massive broad-shouldered wine of otherworldly proportions, clearly one of the wines of the vintage, a year in which everyone did well. Roasted game, hung meats, Asian spices, gravel, wet earth, truffles and a final kiss of sweet kirsch can be found in its stunning flavor profile." A second waiter, noticeably younger than the Maitre d', came back and Gregory ordered the wine. The waiter nodded and smiled. "A great choice," he said magnanimously. Then he rushed off unceremoniously to another table.

"Isn't it strange that every time you go to a restaurant the waiter always approves of your selection as though he just had the same bottle the night before and its memory is still fresh in his mind?"

"Maybe they want you to feel good about yourself to make sure you order more," Gregory speculated. Laura smiled before her face returned to its previous more serious posture. What could she say that would sound both sincere and definitive without having airs of a woman who thinks her suitor is putty in her hands?

"I can see you want to say something," he said. He could feel she was thinking about their night on his couch and its relation to the future, their future, a block of time that seemed infinite and open to all possibilities, yet equally in danger of collapsing into permanent nothingness.

"I guess I just wanted to say that I'm seeing someone else and although I'm not sure he is right for me in the long term, I feel committed enough to stick with it."

Her words were sharp, heavy, and hurtful; it was a pain Gregory had been bracing for. It was like watching a nurse stick a needle in his arm to take an aliquot of his very own blood. Yet somehow, through all her dark clouds and long faces, he sensed there was a solution somewhere, which if he could only find, would result in his saving the moment and winning her over.

"And I think you're very nice. I think you're very interesting and funny too." She felt stupid saying these things. They were the sort of trivial judgments that showed up on grade school report cards. She wanted to say he was attractive, but that was even more fatuous. Men always wanted to hear that they were a strapping Adonis who any woman would die for, but they never understood that most women didn't value looks the same way men did. Looks were packaging, not "the package" as they often were for men. She looked at Gregory. Behind his composed visage she could sense his sadness and disappointment. It was like turning a child away at a fair he had walked ten miles to get to.

"If anything ever happened..."

"No," she said preemptively, her words slicing down between them. Maybe the right answer was not what she had just said, but something completely different. "If I left Mace I don't think it could work between us." She watched his eyes, trying to detect a glimmer of anger that might say he thought she was a stupid bitch for turning him down, but she saw no such thing.

The younger waiter brought the wine to the table and uncorked it. He moved to pour it into Gregory's glass, but Gregory lifted his hand and held it over the rim. "Give it a few minutes and then come back. They say the nineteen nineties are still a bit youthful and a younger wine always needs a little air."

"Of course," the waiter demurred. "How could I have made such an oversight?" He made a stunted half bow, perhaps hurried on by his embarrassment, and retreated from the table.

"Well, that makes two reasons to get drunk tonight. I just found out the other day that there was a large sum of money missing from my account. I really don't know what to do, but if the bank doesn't come up with an explanation I'm going to have to call the police."

"The police?" she asked nervously. "It must have been a lot of money..."

"Yes," he said without any exaggeration of tone, a delivery that made the sum sound even larger than if he had emphasized its true value. "It just vanished, as if it had never been there. It had to be somebody in the bank itself. You always hear stories about such things, but you never think it would happen to you."

As Laura continued to listen, her eyes riveted to his lips, hanging on every word that came out, everything started to fall in place. There was no evidence to indicate that Gregory was a criminal, and ever more reason by the day to deduce that Halo was using her. She was little more than a pawn of some duplicitous agent, used as a means of gaining secret banking information from an innocent man and nothing more. While the man sitting across from her had shown nothing but tenderness towards her, she had betrayed him in the worst possible way.

The waiter returned and poured Gregory a small amount of the wine. It was deep purple, almost black, with an amber halo around the edges. He lifted the glass to his nose; the smell of goose liver, blackberries, and gunflint filled his nose, completely encompassing his senses. While normally such a wine would be enough to bury him in its seductive layers of warm velvety bliss, with Laura sitting across from him staring at him with a look of subdued pathos, he felt nothing but indifference, perhaps even helplessness. It was only six weeks before that he had sat in virtually the same spot sipping such a magical offering with nothing on his mind but how the woman across from him could become one with the wine and himself in a sensual entanglement of flesh and perfume. Now everything was emptiness.

"It will be fine," he said to the waiter with austere formality. The waiter filled his glass and then filled Laura's glass. She smiled a guilty but real smile and took a sip.

"How much say does guilt have in the world of things?" she asked in a more philosophical tone.

"Why?" It seemed a strange question, but one he wasn't unwilling to answer.

"I don't know. The wine is so lovely. It almost makes me feel guilty to sit here drinking it when so many people can't even afford clean drinking water."

It didn't sound like Laura. Something else was hidden behind her comment. Something more significant that he felt if he could disinter it from its place might significantly change things between them for the better or worse.

"What is it?" he asked pointedly.

_"It_?" she replied knowingly. She shrugged her shoulders and looked behind her for a moment before turning back to meet his gaze. She wondered if she had let out too much in her tone. "Nothing. I just feel bad for you. The money."

Gregory sensed she knew exactly what he was talking about. It was in her eyes, and in her lips. It was everywhere. He picked up the menu and started flipping through it. He had a strange feeling that the evening, like the wine gently breathing in the glass in front of him, was still holding very much in reserve.

### Chapter 5.4

The sky assumed the grainy dark blue tint of a silent film viewed on an old tube TV screen as Laura and Gregory stepped out on the street. It was as though the entire world had been immersed in a dense etheric fluid in which different moral and physical laws pertained.

"I feel cold," she said. A sharp wind cut across her face, only reinforcing the alien feeling imparted by the sky.

"Where to? Coffee?" Gregory forced a smile.

Laura paused in reflection. While coffee would have seemed like the logical choice, the sort of thing that most other people in a similar personal situation and walk of life would have found reasonable, there was a disturbing sense of normalcy about it that made her hesitate. No, coffee wasn't the right thing. It wasn't the sort of thing _the first woman of the twenty first century_ would do after returning from her first trip to Europe. The evening called for something more unusual, even radical, but what that was she didn't quite know.

"I'm not sure I'm in the mood for coffee," she said, her sober tone belying her true emotions. She felt like a woman in a perfume ad she had once seen in a magazine who looked like she had just been dumped by her lover, but rather than mope and feel sorry for herself she seized her misfortune as a key to liberty, revenge, and savage independence. She took a long sip of Gregory's profile as they walked past a Sudanese library and then a Puerto Rican fruit stand. In his steel blue blazer and _Paul Smith_ sunglasses he was more handsome than ever. It was as though her acute awareness of the cruelty she had done him had opened up a window to a more human side of his personality she had never viewed before. No longer did he flaunt the cloying gait of a man who craved adoration; there lived a soul with dignity and weight behind those warm colorful eyes and thin chiseled lips. He was far more than a means of seeking revenge against Stork. In being involved in Halo's scheme, had she not wronged Gregory in a much more treacherous way than the cowboy maverick had once wronged her? She was no better than Stork - worse, even - and she had to make it up to Gregory.

"What about dancing? I haven't been to _Sugar's_ for a while."

"No," she said. "Or, I mean I'm not really sure." She took light hold of his hand and let his fingers slip through hers, savoring the rough touch of their skin. They were not like hers. "Something different," she continued. _She just couldn't stop it._ Like a person held hostage by an amusement park rail car that was just about to enter a dark play castle, there was no way she could escape until she emerged from the other end and the ride was over.

"We could go back to my place," he said in the manner of a question. "Maybe we could watch a video and have a small drink."

An older woman walked by wearing a necklace strung with huge marble-sized pearls. She was accompanied by two Afghan hounds, each about three feet in front of her and to either side, making her look like a gem from the old Rockefeller school, the sort of woman who patronized artists and spent summers in Connecticut boathouses with affluent art dealers and insurgent young poets. She was the type he normally had contempt for, brushing shoulders with them at places like the Gagosian, but walking beside Laura at such a moment of absolute bliss had opened his eyes to the rapture in everything. What had happened to change Laura's heart? His mind skimmed through their dinner conversation in search of something he might have said that might have wooed her in the right direction, but he came up blank.

"Sure," she finally said, still gazing admiringly at the two dogs. They looked more like images transposed from the copper and azure walls of an ancient palace than anything flesh and blood. Byzantium. She was obviously doing the right thing. A pink flare purred away inside her, showing her the way. She had chosen well. Her guilt would vanish like a mirage and the future would festoon off in some new direction that was at least as good as her life before she met Gregory or Halo.

The eerie blue sky firmed its grip on the evening as they walked through the narrow streets, lined with tall brick warehouses swaying in the gentle gusts of wind as they almost seemed to sing some dark enchanting tune. At least for that moment, that evening, that day, she needed Gregory. It wasn't merely that she was clearing herself of guilt by serving his desires in the manner of a pay-off to even things out, but more that the assuagement of this very guilt was a force that had opened the tap to her true inner self, a tap that was now impossible to close.

The streets were drenched in the red and blue pulse of a police car light when they arrived at Gregory's apartment block. A crowd of people had gathered around a car encircled by three police vehicles, two sedans, and one mini-van. There was a quiet hush of anticipation as though there was just an accident and the crowd was waiting to find out what, exactly, was going to happen next. There was a loud bang and the crowd jumped back. A man wearing a camouflaged fishing hat broke out laughing and started pointing emphatically at a car driving slowly by. It was a rusted old Chevy from the seventies with broken windows and what Laura imagined were velveteen seats riddled with cigarette burns and splotched with coffee stains. She guessed from the man's mocking laughter that the engine had backfired and it was only a false alarm. One of the police officers, a man with large-framed glasses almost too big for his face, like many men in theatre Laura had encountered over the years, seized his window of opportunity to further disband the crowd by lifting a megaphone to his lips and asking that everyone go home and let the authorities take care it.

Gregory's apartment was unexpectedly warm when they entered. Laura felt hot in her coat, while she had just felt cold outside. She pulled it off immediately and handed it to Gregory.

"My lady," he said in a tone of chivalry. He offered her his hand.

"My captain," she said. "No. I shouldn't have said that. I can't stand Robin Williams. Captain, my Captain. Ha! No...Lord, my Lord. That's more like it." It was one of the first things she said to Stork. They were at an art opening together and he was standing next to her holding a DVD of "Dead Poet's Society" as a prop to further conversation.

Gregory fixed his gaze on her knees and then freed it to wander the paths up her body to her face and eyes. Her hips were more rounded, less straight and boyish, than he had previously thought, and her eyes perhaps softer and more feminine than he remembered. There was an even more delicate woman underneath the tough exterior, the girl inside the woman that every man searched for in the gaze of whatever woman with whom he was craving to make eye contact. There was nothing more unbearable from a woman than that glowering look of admonishment you would expect from a nun scolding a group of male derelicts at a girl's school. But what he was witnessing with Laura was exactly the opposite, the very pinnacle of what all men were searching for. After such a moment was death not the only solution? A burning lump of arsenic or a spoon of sodium cyanide to take him off to the other side with the best memory any man could possibly hope for.

Laura inserted her fingers into her hair and spread it slowly outwards starting from each ear as she moved closer to Gregory, who was still holding her coat.

"You look like some kind of oriental flower with long drooping petals."

"Do I? I always felt when I did this and looked in the mirror that I was the flying nun."

"Don't say that. Nuns are for making everyone feel wrong. I don't want that. You make me feel right. You're an oriental flower."

"I'm an oriental flower." She made a sound with her mouth like the crashing of a great cymbal inside a mountain fortress somewhere in the Himalayas as she swiveled her hips back and forth. Then she let her hair fall to her shoulders. The girlish face returned, but this time it was more reckless and intense, aided and enhanced by the messy look of her hair. A child had just walked in from a garden.

She pressed into him, her eyes resolutely big and watery, unflinching in their determination to push the night onwards to its incontrovertible outcome. His expression betrayed a vague look of violation as she kissed him, as if she was in possession of a force that he was afraid would disrupt his sense of control over all life's events and threaten to tear him asunder. She was now looking into Stork's eyes. With hatred and tenderness she was looking back at him. When their lips touched she felt a surge from his arms, but when she let her head fall back his eyes had changed yet again. This time they were filled with determination and surrender. It was yet another Gregory in the cast of thousands she had met since they first crossed paths. They were a part of a huge multi-part opera and were powerless to do anything about it. He grabbed at her smooth buttocks and pushed her up against an African idol that was standing like a dark omen on the wooden ledge beside his front closet. The idol fell over and rattled harmlessly on the floor. She laughed in a reckless way that seemed out of place to Gregory. It was more the kind of laugh you would expect from the mouth of a small town woman riding on the back of a motorcycle driven by a three hundred pound biker with a devil tattoo. But her laugh died out into a deep Germanic purr, the self-indulgent horn of pleasure sounding from the depths of some woman of high social stature and solid leadership capabilities. It was perhaps the same sound Eva Braun made before she was about to make love to Hitler, V-2 rockets sailing pitilessly across the channel towards their unsuspecting targets.

"Women make such strange sounds when they are about to make love," he said. Then he went silent. Maybe he had just betrayed the true habits of his life to Laura. Only a womanizer would have said such a thing.

"About to? Just wait until we _are_."

He lifted her up and let her wrap her legs around him for support as he crossed in front of the large picture window in the living room, putting them on display to the world outside, and then entered his bedroom. A fresh smell energized the air like a cool Alpine breeze. He felt proud that he was the sort of man that kept his apartment in such a pristine state, almost like a special exhibit at a museum: orderly and crisp in its arrangements without at all being cold. If anything it provoked sexual intrigue and a tumultuous clash of souls and ideas. It was a red light bar for intellectuals where people like Marx and Engels could have argued their points while cavorting with the local ladies of ill-repute: a true haven for mind and body alike.

Laura rolled away from Gregory for a moment and stared at the ceiling. It was her ritual to always stop and think before making love to a new man. It wasn't merely the wine taster's inhalation of the bouquet to anticipate what was to follow, but more of a preparation for violation. Although she liked _to be violated_ by those she deemed worthy, sex for her was a violation nonetheless, something of an invasion that had to be braced for, even if its outcome was almost always ecstatic pleasure. For a moment her mind wandered to Mace, but quickly it turned to the image of Stork in the nude wearing a white cowboy hat, and then to the image of Gregory looking at his bank statement with an FBI officer waiting outside his door. The images repeated in tandem. It was a circle that could not be broken or avoided. Her mind was an electric train riding on a small loop of track, and like the electric train, she always crossed the same points over and over again, no matter how fast or slow she was going. Nothing could change the inevitable. She closed her eyes – Gregory admiring the motion of her eyelids like small spring petals caught in the gentle turbulence of creek water – and began to undo her clothes. When she opened her eyes she was surprised to see Gregory standing next to the bed with only his white underwear on. He looked weak and vulnerable compared to the fully clothed version. It was a comforting image, something that soothed her and prepared her for whatever else the evening had in store.

Their lovemaking unfolded like passages from an ancient book of law. There were introductions, statements and counter-statements, summations and conclusions all woven together into a grander scheme of yet more introductions, statements and counter-statements, summations and conclusions. She would make no sound for almost five minutes, hardly appearing to breath, and then she would suddenly smile and start panting like a wild animal having just run down its prey. In all this interplay Gregory only once was lost in his own passion, something he wished for more of, being guided by some unknown force that fixed his mind on the every nuance of Laura's motions, gestures, and expressions. Strangely, it was not the moment when he finally came that he finally lost himself. It was almost a minute before as an airplane flew overhead. He was looking down her throat when he suddenly he noticed the small red extension dangling from its aperture– an organ he never knew the name of – quivering like some kind of sacred lotus stem in the wind. The image engulfed him. The sweet hazelnut smell of her hair, the aura of her perfume, the sensation of her skin against his, and by the look of complete abandon in her eyes: all congealed into one great tapestry. She ceased to be the Laura he knew and became all women and no woman – a mystical essence at the heart of everything. Her eyes narrowed, cat like, and the image was broken. She became more simply sexual, less of a mystical presence, and it was this that made him come. It was a physical paroxysm that sent earthquakes down his back that even seemed to force aftershocks in Laura's body.

As they lay quietly in bed, Gregory felt almost embarrassed to be lying in such a despoiled state beside such a ravishing and imperious woman. The _Instagram_ photo he had just posted of their anonymous feet poking up from the sheets giving little indication of the winged journey of her panties from the chrysalis of her fully clothed body to the brilliant white butterfly on the floor of her room. Laura felt appeased. She was Afghanistan and had once again been invaded, but this time by Stork pretending to be Gregory in the guise of Stork posing as Gregory. Or was it just Gregory? She didn't really know and conceded she ultimately knew very little about anything at all.

She swept her hand over his hair. It was cold and wet with sweat. Gregory was himself again and the story was now complete. She had been defiled and thoroughly enjoyed it. She had been sweetly and notoriously dishonored. Who was the winner in all this, or did everyone lose this time? A second airplane passed over and flew off somewhere into the distance; this time it caught her attention. She wondered if it was flying to Byzantium and who might be on it and if they felt afraid or even threatened being so alone and so high up in the sky.

### Chapter 5.5

Laura woke up at five in the morning. Her eyelids stung in the holocaust light of dawn and the sheets were strewn chaotically across the floor, as if torn off her body by a nuclear wind. She felt slow and heavy as she rolled over and reached for her pillow that had somehow made its way over to Gregory's side of the bed. The room looked different than it had the night before, a cold alien purgatory she didn't belong in, and the person beside her seemed like no one she knew. It was time for her to go home. It was time to sleep in her own bed. She gathered her clothes quietly from the floor and dressed. She slipped gingerly out of the room and made her way to the door. She paused when she reached the foyer, as though she might have forgotten something. But no. This time there were no secret numbers to copy down. A second and more treacherous form of deceit had already come into being. Its mark was already inside her. What, in the end, was love anyway, if it could stake a claim to be anything at all?

The downstairs lobby was empty but a taxi was waiting outside, its driver reading the morning newspaper as he waited for the first passengers of the day...or, in her case, she mused, the last passengers from the previous day. She hurried outside and opened the back door. The driver nodded and she climbed inside. She felt weak and piteous as the cab rolled into motion, weaving its way through the streets of New York, so fresh and pristine in the stark light of dawn.

When she got back to her bed, she buried herself in the comforting folds of her white eiderdown and tried to fall asleep. It was something she used to do when she was a girl, imagining it some how hid her from the outside world, beyond all harm and detection. But she couldn't even doze. Her anguish was too strong, beating on her soul like a March storm against an attic windowpane. She needed comfort, but there was none to be had. She was totally alone. At least Marlene Dietrich always had her cinematographer husband to run back to whenever her affairs went sour. It was a marriage she cherished until her death. Maybe it was because she needed to be admired for her beauty above all else, and the cinematographer, his cold probing lens focused twelve hours a day on the most beautiful actresses in the world, was the only person versed enough in the pure art of seeing to fully grasp how beautiful she really was.

Just as Laura was about to fall asleep her landline rang. She kept her eyes closed, hoping the phone would somehow disappear, or at least stop ringing. But it just wouldn't stop. After what must have been more than twenty rings she finally threw off her eiderdown and picked up the receiver in a quick single motion.

"Hello," she said darkly.

There was the sound of a single breath on the other end.

"Who is this?"

"Who else could it be? Are you expecting anyone else?" Her world snapped back in place. It was Mace.

"Oh," she said numbly. "I thought it was some weirdo."

"I was calling all night. Where were you?" His words bore a strange gift of comfort. In spite of his suspicions, every syllable was the palm of a soft hand she could rest her head in.

"I was here," she lied seamlessly. "I fell asleep in the living room. Jet lag." She had told him several times before that her wall phone had a quiet ring and that she only had one line in her apartment, in her bedroom.

"I tried your cell phone, too."

"I'm sorry. The lithium battery went dead and I couldn't find the recharging cord." It was a plausible scenario, although it was also a lie that was open for interpretation and scrutiny, a lie that might later give birth to a whole new family of lies designed to cover up the first one.

"I was out with Ray playing pool and I just got home. I was thinking that I might drop by. Unless you have someone else in bed with you."

"No," she said forcefully. Then she softened her tone so as not to arouse further suspicion. "How could you think that? I was hoping you would call before I fell asleep on the couch. Then when I woke up, it was too late and I went into my bedroom. I might be asleep when you come over, so you'd better hurry."

"Sure." There was a click on the other end. She jumped out of bed and went into the living room, removing the recharging cord from her i-phone and hiding it in a kitchen cupboard.

She went back to bed and it seemed her eyes had not even been closed for half a second before the downstairs buzzer rang. She opened her eyes. It was forty-five minutes after she had last looked at the clock. She sprang up and hurried to the front door, pressing the "open" button with her outstretched hand before she had even come to a complete stop. She smoothed her hair back and looked at her reflection in the hall mirror. She didn't look like a woman who had just made furious love to another man the night before. She looked more chaste, almost puritanical, a self-image she was never comfortable with, but one that would serve her well given the circumstances.

There was a loud invasive knock on the door as though an unseen fist was pounding away at her head. She turned the handle and peered through the small space allowed by the chain lock. Mace was standing there looking at her impatiently as he rubbed his hands together like a man in the woods warming himself over an open fire. She closed the door and undid the chain. The door opened and Mace stepped in. He was wearing a white buckskin jacket and a pair of aviator sunglasses that were so large he looked like a highway patrolman at a gay pride parade. It seemed incongruous that she could love such a person.

"So," he said. His voice had a smooth emotive quality she had never noticed before. He could have been singing Barry White songs in a Las Vegas casino to a crowd of middle-aged couples dressed in garish pastel plaids. A sea foam green tuxedo was all he needed to complete the image.

"How was Euuurrrroopppe?" He popped his lips at the "p". He put his arms around her naked body without taking off his coat and prodded his nose into her skin like a basset hound in search of a clue. "You smell too nice to be true. They must have some wonderful new kind of perfume over there in England."

"I guess it is new. I almost forgot to tell you. You're very perceptive." It was Gregory's cologne.

"Who bought it for you?"

"I bought it myself in London."

"Maybe we should go sometime. I always wanted to ride in one of those cute red busses." He started laughing and pressed his grizzled face against her shoulder. His skin was cold and she guessed he hadn't shaved in over a day. He shut the door and took off his coat and sunglasses.

"I don't like it when you get like this," she said, full knowing she had no right to make such a statement after what had happened the night before. "You don't have anything to get jealous about. Where is the..."

"You know I'm just being sarcastic. Years in prison does it to a man. You take me too seriously. If I were you I would stop hanging around those corporate advertising types. They make you too uptight. Be careful the Trojan horse doesn't get burned to the ground before Agamemnon has a chance to escape."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Be careful the Trojan horse doesn't get burned to the ground before Agamemnon has a chance to escape. That's what it's supposed to mean." He laughed uproariously.

"Sorry," she said. "It's just the jet lag. Europe is a long way away."

"I had a friend once from Euuurrroppe," he said, again popping the "p" as he stood in exact profile from where she stood. "He was from Sweden. "I met him out at a logging camp in Washington. He stank like a ditch and never talked to anyone unless he was too drunk to stand. And when that happened, he talked so much we used to have to throw him in the bushes to keep him quiet. He talked in what must have been Swedish with little bits of English thrown in to keep us interested. He talked about all kinds of things. Strange things he said happened to him when he was a kid and later after he joined the army. They still have mandatory service over there, you know. And when he spoke he would sometimes pick up pinecones from the ground and start biting them in half. He claimed he had six wives in different towns all over the world and at least ten kids, but these numbers always changed. He would start showing us pictures and pointing at them all like we were supposed to believe they were his wives, but they all came out of magazines. No one ever bought it, but I thought he had such balls to do what he was doing, even if some of his stories were true after all, that I was the only one who would ever try to defend him. All the other loggers wanted to bust his head." He set his hand gently on her shoulder. His sarcasm had dissipated.

"You never told me this before," she said with tenderness. She felt something intangible rising to the surface of her being. It crystallized with such force she could almost feel it sparkling on her lips. She was sure this time. It was love – but a different type of love than she had experienced with Johnny Enzyme. It was more stable and solid, yet also less fragile and dangerous; it was lines drawn in pencil rather than soft charcoal sticks. "What happened to him?"

"One day some asshole Rotary Club kid from California ran him over in a pink dune buggy. I was about fifty yards away when it happened. Off in the woods. I heard a shout and didn't know what it was because he never said anything unless he was loaded. I ran over and saw this tall tanned guy with long blonde hair and a white T-shirt shouting about how his dune buggy had been toppled over. All the while the Swede was rolling around on the ground hollering in pain."

"So what did you do?" Her eyes sharpened with self-conscious anticipation. Although she didn't like to admit it, she always admired him for beating up people who truly deserved it. It was a genuinely heroic quality, but one whose absence in a person could never be described as a fault.

"I helped the guy turn over his dune buggy. Then I grabbed the keys from him and took the Swede to the hospital in the thing. The poor guy looked half dead by the time I got there, but the doctors assured me he would be fine. So I drove back and ran the dune buggy into a lake and just left it there. Right in front of the surfer kid, too."

"What a jerk," she said, shaking her head.

"And when he started shouting at me and calling me "white trash biker fascist scum", that's when I smiled and gave him his keys back. The ultimate put down."

As she spoke to Mace that morning, or was it still night? - Laura wasn't sure - she became attracted to him in a way she had never been before. In her sleeping with Gregory a distance had seemed to grow between herself and Mace and as a result he became a new and more serious person. Her first instinct, as he ran his fingers gently up and down her side, was to feel sorry for him. After all, she had cheated on him. In the past it was always fine for her to sleep with someone else. In her younger and more childish mind selfishness reigned supreme and she could always find a just excuse to rationalize anything she did. She once even cheated on Johnny Enzyme by making out with his drummer back stage. But it wasn't because she didn't love Johnny Enzyme, or had any strong feelings for his drummer, it was because she was jealous and wanted Johnny's Enzyme's attention. As far as she was concerned, his writhing across the stage in dank basement clubs, hot lights blazing from low ceilings in front of hundreds of new women every night, was some tacit form of infidelity. She estimated that for every fifty women who threw their bras or scarves at him, he had cheated on her once, at least in spirit. And later, when she was single and free from any bonds, it didn't matter who she slept with. Every lover was like a super vitamin pill from a different nutrient group charging her soul with the food it needed to grow and expand like a plant towards the sun. But since she had moved to Manhattan, morality - old gray morality at that - had crept into her life and everything was suddenly different. Cheating on a man was a violation of something transcendent and pure whose essence represented all that was good and worthwhile in life. She was finished with her selfish days and finally realized the value of true commitment. But once again life had deceived her and made her change. She had cheated on Mace and in so doing had entered a new phase of her sexual iconography. What kind of fuck was Gregory, anyway? A pleasure fuck? A love fuck? A guilt fuck? A hate fuck? If not, what was he? And who, now, was Mace? Because she had cheated on him, he had become someone else to her, someone new and different. But who was that someone else?

As Mace lifted her up and kissed her on the kitchen table, she only felt sorry for him for still being involved with her. How could he be so gullible? To make up for it, she would allow herself be his toy doll. It was a relationship role she had never taken with anyone, not even Stork or Johnny Enzyme. She would hand herself over to him as she lay there on the bed like a Victorian Raggedy Anne. That would fix things. He was her baby and to let him know how much she cared she would let herself be his _baby_.

As he kissed her breasts and rocked her back and forth a new feeling came over her that she really was his baby and that he was a man she needed far more than he needed her. She ceased to feel sorry for him and started hoping that there wasn't something in her smell, her eyes and hair, that might betray her infidelity and give him no choice but to discard her. She felt small and weak beneath him, almost insignificant. A victim of the world around her, a victim of Halo, a victim of Gregory, a victim of Mace and his blameless innocence. She was a cheap and hopeless tart who was lucky to have Mace in her life at all.

The next day she woke up to find Mace had already left without leaving a trace. It was the sort of thing he always did, the kind of thing men can always be forgiven for and were sometimes even expected to do, like James Bond waking up at five a.m. to leave behind whatever voluptuous Russian spy he had just slept with - only this time she was the spy. After making herself a small breakfast she went to check her e-mail. It was something she hadn't been able to do since before she left for England, a perfect complement to a strong cup of coffee and a piece of dry toast. She turned on the computer and logged onto the system; there were only two messages, one from Gregory and a second from an address she didn't recognize. She hesitated before opening either of them. It wasn't that she didn't want to hear from Gregory; in fact she did. She wanted to hear that he had found his money and that he had found someone new. How quickly, she thought, can love spring up, then twist back and break apart until it was no longer recognizable. And when losing it became so unbearable you were sure you could never love again, it only made you want to wish for more, but in a newer and more complete form that would somehow rise up and absolve you of whatever you wrongly thought was true love the last time around.

She opened the message from Gregory. It was short and concise, even a bit cocky: _I had a lovely time. Still dreaming of your eyes. Still no luck with the money. I think it's gone for good. Hoping to see you soon. Your friend, Monte._

She sat staring at the screen for a long time before moving her hand on the keyboard to prompt the next message. It was both funny and annoying that he had signed his name "Monte". Annoying because it was funny. Funny because it belied the gravity of the whole situation by trivializing it and reducing it to a childish game. Didn't he know how serious this was? It bothered her that she could be cheating on Mace for a person that thought the whole affair was something that could ultimately be reduced to a person who called himself "Monte". Yet maybe she was the problem. Maybe she didn't realize there was always room for humor no matter how serious the situation. After all, her greatest danger was being found out by Mace, nothing in comparison to Gregory losing all the money and getting turned in by Halo.

The second message had a subject heading "Voyeur". It looked like the sort of porno trash that came along with all the countless business offers and sales spam that promised everything outside of eternal life to partake in whatever scam it was they were running. While she normally would have tossed such a message out, her curiosity won out and she decided to give it a chance, since there were no other pressing matters that morning. She clicked it open. To her shock and trepidation, it was a message from Halo. When she returned to New York she thought she had leapt over an escape barrier that would forever put everything that happened between them in the past. It was a mistake that should never had happened. The tap was closed now and it should never have been opened in the first place. How dare it start leaking again. She felt angry and betrayed as she stared blankly at the incoherent mass of words and punctuation marks, temporarily refusing to congeal into English, as she emotionally prepared her brain to translate it into a message.

Dear Laura,

So glad you had a chance to come and help us. I just wanted to say that our operation has been successful and you have no further need to see Gregory. You did a fine job indeed and you will be receiving special recognition for your services to Britain and the international community. It is so rare to meet a woman of your quality. There is, however, a chance we may need your help again. If you are at all interested I will be in New York next week. Please let me know what you think.

Yours,

J. Halo

Her first inclination was to respond immediately and tell him how much of a thief and a liar he was. How dare he get back in touch with her after everything he did to Gregory. But instead she took a deep breath and settled her nerves. It was no time to lose control. Halo could be dangerous. He could be anyone. He could be stealing money from Gregory's account in some kind of international plot in which she was the central cog. Yes, she thought. Yes. She had to find out. She had to confess. She had to get the truth.

In less than five minutes she had replied to both messages, saying to both men that she would be more than happy to get together and all they needed do was specify the time and place. As she dressed she felt a sharp pain in her lower stomach, bitterly reminding her of the night before. But she wasn't going to give in to it. She was stronger than that. She was stronger than _they_ were. She was ready for anyone. Byzantium always found a way in the end, didn't it?

### Chapter 5.6

Gregory brushed a renegade hair neatly to one side as he groomed himself in the mirror. Laura was coming over for coffee and he had to look his best to let her know that she had made the right choice in sleeping with him. He was no fool. He knew how women could suddenly change their minds and back out once things started to heat up. It wasn't that he expected her to do this. He was just trying to cover all his bases to mitigate risk, as it were, in the same way he would with any investment. She had time to think about her feelings in England and had obviously chosen him. Her proclamation at the restaurant was just a guard to make sure he was serious about her. Women always liked to test the waters and see how serious you were before they made any big moves. He had even read this once in _Psychology Today_ while waiting in a dentist's office. The same article argued that men were much more prone to just jump ahead without thinking of the consequences. With such failsafe advice to couch his presumptions, it was no wonder she had accepted his invitation to visit him later in the afternoon.

Gregory stepped back from the mirror and a much darker thought suddenly entered his mind: what would the Carrier do now that the money was gone? In their private agreement, he was obliged to pay the Carrier a third of whatever he skimmed off the top. But wasn't this just like a botched bank robbery where no one could hold anyone else accountable and demand their cut because there wasn't anything for there to be a cut of? Whatever the answer, it had to be resolved. And if he couldn't retrieve the funds he would just repeat the operation using new bank accounts to draw the money from a totally different source. He tapped his foot nervously on the ground and readjusted a dangling testicle in his underwear before lifting his i-phone to his ear and dialing. The line had a strange quality to it, as though the rings originated from a small quadrant of a much larger landscape of silence. He felt suddenly less real, one metaphysical step removed from his normal place in the space-time continuum. There was a hard clicking noise and then the sound of random conversations, audio samplings emanating from what could have been a small crowd in some Third World marketplace.

"Hello." The Carrier's voice sprung out at him.

"It's me," Gregory said, somewhat startled. "Where are you?"

"I can't tell you."

Gregory hesitated. The Carrier always told him where he was. Although they had never met face to face, he would always warn him ahead of time of any change of name or address. This was the first time in their entire personal history that he had been so secretive. Perhaps it was some new level of security imposed on them because of the lost money.

"Maybe a good idea. As for me, I'm running out of them. I did everything I could."

"Everything?" A dish shattered in the background. The image of The Invisible Man sitting at a table in a loud cafeteria, his face all wrapped in bandages, entered Gregory's mind, although he wasn't sure why.

"Yes," Gregory assured him. "There isn't much I can do without looking suspicious."

"We'll have to start again," he said. Gregory heard the voice of an old woman with an accent - possibly Italian - scolding someone, perhaps because of the broken plate. He imagined it had been filled with an exotic fluidic dish like linguini with white wine and crab sauce, which was now smeared all over the floor.

"Again?"

"There's always more. It's just a matter of timing and stealth, short-selling between exchange rates and skimming off the top."

"I'll use a different bank. I can open an account next week."

The Carrier produced a light, hacking cough of anticipation and then swallowed. "How are things otherwise?"

"I'll tell you next time. There's news. Things are changing."

"Good. I'll look forward to it."

There was a sound like water rushing and then the line went dead. After a long silence, tensed like a circus high wire and filled with all the Big Top possibilities a lively imagination could create, he put his i-phone down on the desk. He had no reason to worry. The conversation had gone more smoothly than he ever could have hoped for. It just showed how close he was to the Carrier, how even though they had never met, they were business partners in the truest sense of the word that stuck together through thick and thin, good deals and bad ones alike. It was the very spirit America was founded on.

An hour later Laura buzzed his apartment from downstairs. When he opened the door he was instantly struck by the swollen gravity in her eyes that projected emotions far more serious than anything he had expected. Perhaps she had broken it off with her boyfriend and had spent the afternoon with him in a park listening to his pleas to reconsider and come back to him.

"Hi," she said. She noticed a smell like baking spices in the air. She felt guilty and awkward, as she tried to get up the nerve to speak.

"Come in," he said. "I was just drinking a cinnamon cappuccino." He wrapped his arms around her and planted a rugged kiss square on her lips. She pulled back immediately. It was the kind of kiss she never liked, the sort of kiss that established territory, staking the claim that she belonged to that kisser only and no one else need bother trying. She had even slapped men for kissing her like that, once after going home with a guy on a one-night stand and then having him try to convert it into a legitimate relationship the very morning after. But this time it made her feel doubly uncomfortable.

"You have to be careful," she said gravely.

Gregory didn't quite know what she meant. Careful about cappuccino? "Yes," he said. "You never know what you're drinking these days."

"And you should think the same of me," she added. Gregory's smile slid slowly from his face like the top half of a layer cake iced and assembled long before it had cooled.

"What do you mean?" He took her coat and hung it up while never letting his eyes escape her gaze. Her forehead revealed a series of previously hidden furrows, her visage marked with the gray length of age.

"You're going to hate me when I say this..."

"You want to leave me again."

"No," she said gravely.

"Then what could be wrong?"

"It's more than that. It goes back to everything that we were based on. Why we met. What I'm doing here right now."

Gregory hung his head down and looked away. "So," he said. "I suppose you're a police woman and want to arrest me."

"Arrest you? For what? What could I arrest you for? I'm not sure what's going on anymore. What have you even done?" She suddenly felt like she had lost control over everything, as though she was speeding down a snowy hill towards an impenetrable wall of pine trees. "Why did we sleep together?" She bit her lower lip and threw her arms around him. She sobbed into his shoulder as she continued, the words scraping out of her mouth like stone slabs dragged across an entire continent to build a monument to her lies and deception. "I'm sorry," she said sheepishly. "I was asked to meet you. A man named Halo who said he was an agent. He wanted me to help him. He said you were an international criminal. He said you were wanted for money laundering and tax evasion. He offered me money to get some information from you. He just wanted some numbers. He said he needed it to convict you. But now I am not even sure he was a legitimate agent."

Gregory stood there pale with disbelief, his mouth agape in shock. "So was that what this is all about? You just set me up so you could get a little money and have a little fun? And I was stupid enough to think you could love me..."

"No, Gregory. Don't think that. That's why I came back. As I got to know you I realized I needed you in my life. I couldn't lose you and let them take you away to jail."

His eyes became harder and more reflective. "Well, in a strange way you may have gotten what you wanted because it looks like you got screwed as well, and not only by me. I can't believe you fell for it. Whoever this man was just used you to steal money from me. And to think you knew all along. To think sleeping with me was just some long-range plot to bring me down."

"Was I wrong? Did you steal it? Are you what they say you are?"

Gregory pushed her away in gesture of foppish disgust. She had sucked everything out of him, made him fall in love with her, tried to turn him in, and then confessed to it all as though to turn the screw one notch further by pleading for his sympathy and making him feel guilty for denying it. He drew forth enough saliva to fill the trough between his lip and lower teeth and puckered his mouth, almost spitting into her face before letting his head drop and spitting at her shoes instead.

"Yes," he said candidly as he wiped his lips on his cuff, "I drew the money out of a foreign transfer. I have an accomplice - a person I can never tell you about - and we work together on locating large sums of money being transferred between international entities and catch it in between an exchange. A fraction of a percent on billions of dollars is more than enough and can't get traced anywhere. The beauty is that there is no actual theft and it is perfectly legal." He exhaled like a person who has just come home after a long day at work and shook his head in disbelief. "So are you satisfied? I really thought we were going somewhere. We looked at a few graffiti brushstrokes on a wall behind a schoolyard. I saw seagulls, you saw vultures. Or better, you were a vulture and I just got gulled."

Laura dug her nails into her hips and pressed as hard as she could. She imagined she was sitting in the middle of a circle in a large white room and everyone she knew – everyone, including Tünde, Star and Johnny Enzyme, were pointing at her and shaking their heads in condemnation and disbelief. Even though Gregory turned out to be the same crook Halo had made him out to be, he was only a crook in the mildest sense, not harming anybody but the billionaires and multinational corporations who didn't need the money anyway and just used it to prop up their overinflated egos as they raped the world and everyone in it. At worst, he was a Robin Hood. And Halo? The Sheriff of Nottingham was being far too kind. How could she have been so foolish?

"Star," she whispered as she shook her head trenchantly. "If only..." She clenched her fist. The preternatural glow of pink neon lights outside her window burned like distorted circus hoops on the borders of her vision, but there were no tigers jumping through them, not even imaginary.

"What?"

"Nothing," she said slowly without focus or passion like a person just sentenced in court. "It doesn't mean anything."

"So, how did he really bribe you to do this? Sex? Drugs? No, that would be too cheap. Too commonplace for a woman like you. I can't see what would motivate a woman with a decent job and a fulfilling personal life to track down a total stranger so she could spy on him and rat him out. I've heard of ex-cons getting out of jail to go under cover against some Mafia Don. But this? You slept with me when you knew how I felt about you and then turned me in."

"No," she said with a self-deprecating hush. She thought of telling him about Stork, but then changed her mind. It would only weaken her case and make her look even more shallow and vengeful than she already appeared. "I made love with you because you were different and I discovered that I did have feelings for you. Can't you see? I could have just went off to England..."

"So, that's where he was from?"

"Yes. Or so it seems. There's a lot more to it. When I was in England I realized that I was struggling with myself over what I had done by giving him the numbers, the prospect of cheating on Mace, and the fact that I may have been turning in a completely innocent person. Just before I met Halo in Crystal Palace I decided that if I didn't give him the number I would have been doing so out of my newfound sympathy for you. But since I was with Mace, I would have been admitting I was unfaithful to him by not complying with Halo."

"So when you came back you just did me for what? Fun? Guilt? What was it? A game? I can't believe this. You disgust me. Not only do you turn me over, you let me have my way with you so I will always know what I'll be missing. I know your type. And I bet your man is a real hard ass son of a bitch from the wrong side of the tracks. Those are the only type that can keep a woman like you in line. Maybe they are just too stupid to know what you are all about, or just too dead inside to know the difference. One thing I want you to know, though. One thing before whoever it is you have surrounding the house or waiting in some bush with a silencer. And that's that I have had a lot of girls in my life and that in terms of numbers you aren't unique. But there wasn't a guy anywhere that would ever love you the way I did. No. You missed your chance. But that's what dumb girls are like anyway. When a man loves them too much they think something is wrong so they have to ditch him. I've seen it all before. All it takes is a few B-grade gangster movies to figure that one out."

"I really thought I was doing the right thing," she said. She felt a sob coming up but held it back. Tears would have only made her look even more manipulative than she had already been. "When Halo came to me I thought I was content with my life, but his conversations with me opened up a new world of things I had never experienced and could only do so by following him. And when he had me meet you at the art gallery I knew I could possibly fall for you but I also knew that I would enjoy the challenge of seeing how far I could get in the investigation without giving in to whatever feelings for you emerged. In some ways it was a game. A game to get back at someone I used to know. A game that I won, but ultimately lost."

"For people like you winning and losing is the same thing."

"I thought I was doing something meaningful for my country," she said feeling the full weight of the lie inside her, "for everything I believed in. He convinced me."

"But once you turned me in, why didn't you just leave me alone? I know. You had to get a piece of me. You had to go that much further."

"No. It was because I needed you. I needed to give you what you wanted. I needed to free myself and give me what I wanted. All along I was doing either what I thought Halo wanted or what I thought Mace wanted. Then I decided that I was going to do what I wanted."

"So selfish. In giving me what I wanted and you what you wanted, you ended up bringing us both down."

"But there's something else you should know," she said. "I don't think he's a cop. Or if he is, he's a double agent. I saw him talking to someone after I met him. The next day the same guy, or someone who looked very similar, showed up in the paper as a wanted conspirator. If Halo really is a federal agent, he isn't a good one. I may be wrong, but there was just something suspicious about the whole thing. I don't know how I could have been so stupid as to believe him."

When she finished speaking and closed her lips she noticed she was looking at the ground, completely unaware of the world around her. When she looked up she saw that Gregory was kneeling on the floor, his shirt partially unbuttoned as though he had tried to take it off but gave up. His head was buried between his hands. He was completely still. He remained frozen in the same position for almost five minutes before she kneeled down beside him and set her hand on his back. She was half expecting an elbow to jab her, but he just collapsed flat on the floor and curled up in a ball.

"Gregory," she pleaded. She nudged him gently. There was no response. She moved along side him and listened to the sound of his breathing until she could hear nothing. For what seemed like a minor eternity she was sure that she was fast asleep. When she opened her eyes and the world returned, Gregory was still lying with his eyes closed, as though he were dead. Yet obviously he wasn't. It was a protest. It was his way of blocking the world out of his mind in an act of remonstration, like a child hiding from his parents or playing dead in an attempt to stay home on his first day at a new school. It made her sad that she had done this to someone, made his world so ugly and inhospitable that the darkness behind his closed eyes seemed preferable.

She stood up and walked into the living room. An outdated flip-phone phone lying on the desk in the corner made her think of Mace and how he was probably waiting for her to call. She walked over to the desk and picked it up. It seemed lighter than it should have been. She shook it to see if there were any loose parts inside but there weren't. She flipped the cover open and waited for a dial tone. Nothing came. She shook it back and forth and tried again. Then she just set it back on the desk. She crossed back into the foyer where she noticed Gregory had moved. His eyes were open and he was staring blankly at the ceiling as though he were floating through a vast empty space, completely unaware of her presence. She knelt at his side and shook him. His body was lose and warm, not at all rigid.

"Come on Gregory," she said as she shook him again. "You're starting to scare me. You know I care about you. You know how much I regret everything. Come on. Please snap out of it."

He slowly turned his head towards her and set his gaze on her face. His face was filled with pale resolve, like a man summoning the strength to absorb a catastrophic loss.

"I think you should just leave," he said in a slow and deliberately threatening voice. He looked at her and his eyes softened, seeming to realize that he may be scaring her. "It's nothing personal," he said more soberly. "You are the most confused woman I have ever met. I think I need to be alone."

"OK," she said with understanding and resolve. "I will leave you alone as I should have in the first place. If you ever feel like calling me you can, but I know you won't."

She kissed him on the forehead and stood up. She turned and walked out the door in quick determined steps. "Bitch," she heard him mumble as she approached the elevator. Then there was a loud thump. Who ever said it was hard to walk away? That was always the easy part. It was much harder not to come back. That part was always the hardest and not even the whispers of the sidewalks could help her now.

### Chapter 5.7

Laura snapped her heels together like soldier having just received a command to march. Act military: that was the only solution. Be serious. Be inflexible, even brutish. She knelt down and polished her shiny black boots, a stiff licorice mirror, and then jackknifed into the posture of a soldier standing at full attention. By agreeing to meet Halo at an Irish pub on the Upper West Side she had accepted her order and was obligated to fulfill her duties. What use did Halo have for her, anyway? She was now only a danger to him, someone who might talk. A person who could only do him harm. What if he knew she had watched him that night at Crystal Palace? Maybe that's why he was coming. He was going to kill her. There was also the chance that he had her followed and knew she had met with Gregory and if Halo was somehow linked to Gregory through some hidden channel of informants, everything she had said to him would inevitably leak back to Halo. No matter how she looked at it, she was surrounded by a thousand looping waterslides, each one emptying into the same treacherous pool of crocodiles.

She applied a thin layer of red lipstick. It was a glistening, succulent shade of red that was designed to intimidate as much as attract. If she was going down, she was going to go down like a true femme fatal. When she was truly defeated and finally _Dishonored_ she would face her firing squad as would a model strutting down the catwalk in Milan, the soldier's guns all cameras and microphones desperate to grab just one last milky glance before she became just another file of pixelated history. The young soldiers, sprouts just barely out of puberty, would all stand there, knees shaking, wiping tears from their cheeks as they closed their eyes and pulled the trigger. And once Laura had crumbled to the ground, the thought that none of them would ever taste her beauty would torment their tender little souls forever. That was the reason behind the lipstick. That was the reason behind the boots. Berlin nineteen thirty-eight: sex and death.

She stepped out of the inevitable cab, her slim blackened leg sliding out of the door into the deep voluptuous night, and paid the cab driver. As he accepted the money she softly narrowed her eyes the way prostitutes do when trying to establish eye contact. All women were whores in the end. The driver smiled, as she knew he would. She turned away indifferently and traversed the curbstone to the street corner. She took a quick glance at her watch. This time, it was her turn to show up late. It would force Halo to wait. He would sweat. He would start to wonder if the bar was surrounded by FBI agents and if he would ever make it out alive. And this time she didn't want his money. It was cunt money, whore money, fuck money. She would patrol the block, looping around to get a feel for what was going on, what the _scene_ was, and then come back to meet him when she was sure the coast was clear.

The buildings were mostly red brick with iron railed fire escapes decorating their sides. She passed a small group of Latino men playing cards beside a fire hydrant. Deliberately disrespecting the two-foot cushion you normally gave a person on the New York streets, she let her leg brushed against the back of a thin young man wearing a red leather jacket, "Lucifer's Midgets" embroidered across the back in purple gothic letters. He turned in a quick jolt as though expecting a rival gang member, but when their eyes met, he only smiled with warm surprise, a look she peered right through before nodding her head insouciantly and walking away.

The street was braced with an almost cinematic sense of anticipation, as though her life was a story written solely for the entertainment of others. It was a feeling she had never experienced before. She had reached an age when she was sure she had already felt every emotion possible and that growing older was just a process of refining and clarifying those same feelings, perhaps even harnessing them, so that they might somehow be put to productive use even further down the road. She once knew a female ecstasy dealer from Portland who had a bright silver Mohawk haircut and drove around in an immaculate black Hummer. The woman used to say she would not be too unhappy to die before she was forty because her last ten years had consisted of a gradual numbing of all the feelings that had once kept her interested in life. These proclamations had always shocked Laura. Was this what growing old really meant? Was it a gradual dulling of your essence with no new feelings or experiences to look forward to? As she wended through the crowds and streets on her way to meet Halo she wished she could call that woman that very instant and tell her that it was all a lie, and that there really were new experiences to be had in life, it was only a matter of finding them.

When she finally entered the pub she was already forty-five minutes late. A group of Japanese businessmen were drinking Guinness at a large table in the center of the room, singing along with a fat man with suspenders and a bushy beard who was playing an amplified fiddle in the corner. One of the Japanese men was wearing a sweater that had reindeer patterns and snowflakes sewn into the breast around a central embroidered logo that read "Winter Sweater" as though it was intended as a souvenir to be taken back to a strange country where snowflake patterns would not be immediately recognizable as pertaining to the winter season. She took a cursory tour of the pub and all its semi-isolated drinking cubicles; Halo was nowhere to be found. Perhaps she had come too late and he had already given up on her. She took a seat at the bar and ordered a Guinness. She would give it twenty minutes before leaving. She set the exact change in front of her as she waited for the foam settle so the bartender could top it up.

She savored the malty black liquid in small deliberate sips, as the reflection of the cars from outside glittered in blue and red like Christmas lights hanging from the mirrored wall of colored bottles that decorated the space behind the bar. She wondered if it was just a condition of life to always be sitting and waiting for something to happen that could at best send you down some corridor to a new place where you were had to sit and wait all over again for some signal to get up and take your journey down yet another corridor. A series of waiting periods that led only to more waiting periods and nothing else. Just as she let the last drops of foam trickle down her throat, she felt a heavy nudge on her shoulder that was far too obvious not to be deliberate. She turned to see Halo standing there with a bright waxy smile on his face. He was holding an umbrella in one hand and a briefcase in the other.

"I'm sorry I'm late," he said. "I really am to blame this time. I should have taken a cab instead of walking. A miscalculation there really should be no excuse for."

"I was late as well," she beamed with pride. "I thought maybe I had missed you. I was just about to leave."

"I'm glad I found you, then." He set his umbrella up against the bar. "May I?" He gestured to the seat beside her.

"Sure," she said. He set his briefcase down and took the seat.

"Just a moment," he said. He raised his finger to the bartender and pointed to a tap of Newcastle Brown. He turned to Laura and whispered: "I don't drink this back in England. It's a bit of a showy ale, if you know what I mean. Too sweet and nutty. More for the tourists than the locals."

"I'm not such a beer drinker myself," she said with cold resolution, perhaps as a way of getting back at him for being later than she was.

"A pity," he said with a composed look on his face that said he either didn't notice her disgruntlement, or just didn't care. "Back in England we think of our ales as the equivalent of the finest French cheeses. I don't think wine is a good comparison. A true ale is more like a cheese than a wine. You have to love the taste of must and mold. You have to have a love affair with yeast and bacteria. A wine is essentially dead, but an ale is still alive, thronging with layers of life and death."

"I prefer wine," Laura said in casual defiance.

Halo nodded his head in approval, as though to demonstrate that her calculated barbs had no effect on him. The waiter brought him his beer and he reached into his pocket. Then he turned back to Laura. "Pardon me. How rude of me. I should have ordered something for you as well. What are you drinking?"

"I thought you'd never ask," she said. "I guess I'll have another Guinness."

"Good choice. Stouts are different than ales. They are all about strength and fortitude. And speaking of which, that's why I was so impressed with you. You did everything with a blend of professionalism and resolve that is hard to come by these days."

Laura followed his eyes and lips as he spoke. They were cold and hard, belying the seemingly kind intention of his words. It was the sort of thing you would expect to hear from a gang leader before a gunman drove by and opened fire. Death. The cold black hand. Without even a whisper it came and opened you up to the eternal silence of the great unknown.

"I'm happy that you are pleased. Surprised even. It really wasn't so hard to allow myself to be seduced by a man that fell in love with me the moment he saw me. And once that happened everything else was trivial."

"That's why I came back. However impressed I was, I knew it came too easy for you. I knew that you were a woman who could sway away from the core values of your life without too much trouble. I could tell because you have a wandering eye that is rare in most women. Men are the hunters and destroyers of the world, so a wandering eye – conveying a sense of vigilance and preparedness for danger - comes naturally. Decent women are trained from day one never to look a strange man directly in the eye. To never show that sign of a wandering spirit. It goes back to pagan myths of witches. Any woman showing the sign of any desire to do anything but stay at home and serve the wishes of a man was labeled as a witch. And so naturally families would want their daughters to possess all the hallmarks of grace and breeding that showed she was a safe bet for marriage."

"Very good," Laura said as the bartender set her Guinness down in front of her. She stared into the thick layer of foam on top, the shape of a heart inked into it by the last drops from the tap. "You always impressed me with your knowledge of history. And what about me? Do you think I would be a good bet for marriage? Do you think I could pretend to marry your next target so you can do whatever it is you want to do with him?"

Halo smiled, revealing a small gold cap on one of his front teeth that she had never noticed before. It was a warm smile that seemed to flaunt the fact that he wasn't remotely shocked or offended by what she had just said.

"No," he said. "I'm a bit too clever for that. I have other intentions."

"Well," she said with a snap. "What might those be? Now that you've ripped off Gregory and transferred the money to whatever sorts of subversive organizations you support. I saw you that night with that man and I saw you hand him the envelope. And don't say that it was a misunderstanding. Because it wasn't. You had no intentions of turning in Gregory. It was all a setup and I was the disposable syringe that gets tossed away in an incinerator lest it become infectious and someone try using it again."

"You surprise me, Laura. You always underestimate me. Do you actually think that what you just said is true? The only reason you might have seen me with that "man" was because I have responsibilities to infiltrate all manner of illicit groups and organizations. That's how an investigation works. Just because some man – a well-respected agent at that – is spotted at night in some park talking with someone who may or may not be a criminal does that mean that he himself is a criminal? And don't you think that the first step in apprehending someone for money laundering is to freeze the illegal funds? If your man Gregory can't get a hold of his money its either because he made a slip up himself or the funds were seized by the MI6."

"Why do I have a hard time believing you? Why are you even here talking to me? Is it normal for British agents to lounge around New York bars in big capes acting like prophets of some long lost doomsday generation?"

"Doomsday? I am really so disappointed in you. I really don't know what you are talking about."

"You and all of your subversive talk and that staid British smile. Come on. Shoot me. That's what you came for, isn't it? That's why I wore the black boots and the makeup. I wanted you to know that if you were going to shoot me you'd always have it burning away in your cheap mind that you couldn't have me..."

"Each man kills the thing he loves," he said as though uttering the natural echo of the words she had just spoken.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Come now, Laura. Let's settle down. We had a deal and we closed it. All these emotions are causing you to lose face. You're a businesswoman. You should know better than that."

"You still haven't answered my question," she said, holding her Guinness firmly in her hand as she would an AK-47. She imagined for a moment that she was a Berlin cabaret girl from the nineteen thirties. Maybe even Marlene Dietrich in _The Blue Angel_. She was in control this time. He could pull out a gun and kill her, but she would still be in control. Sex appeal always won in the end, even in death it won. But maybe that was a different movie, the wrong movie.

"Each man kills the thing he loves," he repeated more slowly, savoring the individual words like the scent from a mountain brook. "We all have the desire inside us to aspire to greater things than ourselves. That is the impulse of religion as I see it. Whether you think God was invented by man or man by God, you have to concede that real or not, God stands above us as that which we aspire to become. In every religion there is the will to transcend and captivate the goal of the transcendence – in essence, to assimilate it, imprison it and destroy it. Every man wants to be a God when he prays. Every man, every priest, every Mullah...they are all ultimately envious of that which they can never become. Sooner or later they realize they'll never have the same powers of creation, real or imaginary, as God. And that is why the more religious a person is, the more oppressive he becomes towards those who follow him. If Mohammed came back to divert the course of Islam back to its original intention, they would most certainly send a suicide bomber off to kill him. But the big surprise is that it wouldn't really matter. At the end of the day history didn't even need Mohammed. Wasn't Christianity enough? He wasn't welcome then and he isn't welcome now, not even in a Mosque." He laughed in a way that made his face look older and fatter than it had a moment before.

"A threat to their power."

"See. You know what I mean. Imprisonment. That was what they gave to Christ. That was what they did to the one they loved the most."

"And where do I fit in all this?"

"I can read so much in your eyes. You are afraid of me. You think that you exposed me as some kind of criminal parasite feeding off the backs of other criminals and that I'm going to kill you. Is that what you want?"

"I suppose you think I'm afraid. And I bet that really excites you. Don't you think the entire world around us is that much more frightening than death? What could death be but nothingness? And don't we all crave nothingness? Isn't it preferable to all _this_?" She spread her hands outwards from her chest like a ballet dancer portraying the opening of a flower. "And another thing," she said even more pointedly. "Am I to take it that if you want to kill me it's because you love me and you know you can't have me?" She opened her mouth just enough to show the tip of her tongue, tilting her head to one side as she slowly licked the red of her upper lip.

Halo's eyes changed, betraying a certain discomfort. "I am a happily married man, my dear lady. While you are certainly an attractive woman of a type that I would have been interested in when I was a young man in the army, I think we are too far apart for love. Too disparate for attraction. Yet I would have no qualms killing a woman – even one like yourself, even you, in fact - if the need ever arose."

"Arose?" she repeated in a British accent. "When might _your need arise_?"

"People sometimes become problematic. People who are traitors to the nation. People who are a security threat. People who talk when they shouldn't."

"I see. So if I get up and whisper in that man's ear everything I know and suspect then you would kill me." She pointed over at a police officer standing outside the door who was busy in the act of writing something down on a note pad.

"You could try and see what happens. But you needn't waste your energy. As I told you, Gregory either lost the money himself or it was seized by the MI6. If you told him anything it was probably wrong and I doubt it could be used against us."

Laura stood up and took a last creamy sip of her Guinness. "I don't believe you. I think you're lying. I think there's more to this than what you say. I know your type. Married police inspector with a new dead school girl found in the gutter every year for saying that she fell in love with you and was going to tell your wife what happened."

"Have it your way," Halo said with pronounced regret. "I thought we could work more together, but that is obviously not the case."

Laura had taken only two steps before she was aware of a sudden motion behind her, a sensation like that of a vast and horrible weight being tossed upon her from nowhere. This was followed by an experience of great warmth like being too close to a smoldering hearth. A sharp pain spread through her body as the room plunged away from all comprehension, suddenly bereft of any logic or proportion. She was dying. She struggled to form the idea of death in her mind. She was falling away from everything she had ever known. He had killed her after all. But this time there was no false ending. There was no man in the firing squad so madly in love with her he couldn't fire, no Carry Grant prowling up the stairs to save her from poisoning. There was no redemption. She felt a vast sense of liberation. Yes, was the last word that echoed through her mind as she had the vague sensation of falling downwards and hitting something large and soft, yet somehow still firm. Yes. Yes. Yes. She would be reunited with Johnny Enzyme at last. They would meet on that dark rainy road winding off into depths of a rainy forest. Finally there was nothing. Yet it was a nothing that could never be experienced as such, because it was a nothing completely devoid of any telltale marker or defining quality, a nothing in its purest and most unknowable form.

### Chapter 5.8

When, exactly, was it time for love? When Laura opened her eyes all she saw was darkness. She wasn't hot or cold, perhaps just warm – she felt far too numb to know for sure. She sensed she was alone, but again she wasn't sure. The air was tight and dry, as inside an apartment in winter; she smelled something like dust or gravel. She closed her eyes, savoring a pleasant sense of weight that pulsed through her limbs. Before she knew it she was asleep again. In her dreams – and they were bright vivid dreams that fluttered by like fragments of a colored banner rippling in the wind – she was living with a man who looked exactly like an old boss of hers, a guy named Jerry who ran a chain of internet cafés in Portland, but he wasn't Jerry. He was Mace and he was Gregory and she spoke to him as though he were both men at once.

"Why are you Jerry when you aren't?" she asked with child-like impudence. It was the first time she had ever questioned the logic of her dreams. Jerry looked at her with slight confusion and then asked her to sweep the floor before the café got busier. There was tango music playing on the jukebox and a man sitting alone in the corner wearing a headdress was whistling out of tune. The room broke into small fragments and then there was darkness. Soon, a second dream emerged. In this dream she was with the same man, but they were alone on a beachfront. In the time frame of the dream they had been married for ten years and were celebrating an anniversary over a bottle of champagne they were sharing on a small sand bar a few yards out into the water. It was time for love then, so why not now?

There was a sudden bang and she was awake. The room was lighter than it had been before and she could make out the lines of what looked like a door and a desk somewhere in front of her. She was lying on a bed. Her clothes were still on. She wasn't warm anymore; she was hot. This time she knew for sure. Somewhere in the distance she could hear the sound of something frying in a kitchen. The air smelled of ginger, but it was the bitter kind they used in Asian cooking and not the sweet variety found in gingerbread. She heard a bang and then a shout of a male voice. Was it the man in her dream? Was it really time for love? Would he come in and ask her to clean her apartment or would he come in and make love to her? Maybe it was their anniversary and he was cooking dinner for her. She sat in the bed and listened to the noises from outside. They were hard inimical sounds that frightened her. She was comfortable in her womb, yet increasingly curious to see what lay outside.

Just as she was about to crawl out of bed the door opened and a tall shadowy figure appeared before her. The light from outside was so intense she couldn't make out its features.

"Are we going to the beach," she asked.

"Not yet," was the answer. "The beach is too far. We have to wait." She recognized the voice as one that made her sad at some time. It was a boy she had once abandoned. It was a person she had wronged.

The door closed and the figure was gone. She rolled over and got out of bed. When she stood up she felt a sudden painful throb in her head as though she had been hit with a blunt object or drugged. She felt dizzy for a moment and leaned back to the bed before standing up again when she felt more secure. She tottered slowly in the direction of the door. She wanted to see the figure again and love it. Maybe it was cooking for her to make her realize how much it cared for her. She thought of a small puppy with coffee-colored fur she found once in front of her door. She didn't let it in, but only because she thought her mother would be mad at her. When she opened the door she found a large well-decorated living area. Maybe it was their anniversary after all. This was her house and she was married and her life was as perfect as that of no other.

A man stepped into the living room and approached her. He was handsome, but in a frail and fussy way; it was a look she never liked in anyone but him.

"Are you feeling better?" he asked.

"I feel fine," she said. "Apart from my head."

"You will be fine. You just need rest," he said in the comforting tone of a family doctor.

"When are we celebrating?"

"Celebrating?"

"Our marriage. Hasn't it been ten years?"

"No. It hasn't."

"What then?" she said, confused. Her world started to crumble. She grabbed his wrist and pulled him towards her.

"Only nine," he said. His voice restored her confidence. The pieces of her world regrouped. She was happy to be married to the man in front of her. He was a strong and just man. Any woman would be lucky.

"What are we going to do?" she asked eagerly.

"Do?"

"To celebrate."

"We can go to the beach. There's a park at the beach with rides and there's always a small patch of grass near the sand where you can sit down and have a picnic."

"Will there be boats?" She struggled to remember ever having been there. By the look on his face it was a place she should remember. A place that she had been to countless times before.

"There are always boats. Lots of them. With sails and smoke stacks. Some are even row boats."

"That will be nice," she said. "I shall be very happy to spend the day watching the boats. But what should I wear?"

"Why not what you have on now?"

"A woman can't wear the same thing twice," she said. "Not a real woman."

"Why not one of your dresses?"

"Dresses?"

"In the closet."

She turned and walked back into the bedroom. There was a closet in the corner. She leaned forward and opened it. Inside there were only men's suits and slacks. There were no dresses. It must be the wrong closet. She turned and looked around the room. There were no other closets. Something was wrong again. She went back to the living room.

"How did you make out?"

"I couldn't find anything. Is there another closet?"

"No," he said.

"Then where are my dresses?" Her voice became thin and strained, as though she sensed an impending threat.

"There aren't any."

"You sent them to be cleaned. How thoughtful of you," she said hopefully.

"No," he said. "There aren't any."

"Then where are they?"

"Back at your house."

"Why do I have another house? That doesn't make any sense. You should be ashamed of yourself talking like that. You should be very ashamed."

"Laura," he said. He reached out and pressed her hand between his hands. She felt weaker, as though he was in control of her life and without him she was useless.

"What?" she said. A tear fell from her eye.

"We aren't married."

"We aren't? Why are you playing games with me? What about the boats? Why can't we go see the boats?"

"I wanted to love you so badly, but you wouldn't let it happen. You did things that made it impossible for me to ever love you again."

"You're lying," she said. "You are just mad because you...you're just mad because you're not...you're not...you aren't as pretty as I am. That's it. You're just playing with me. It makes you mad that all the boys always look at me when we go out walking together."

"That's ridiculous. You're beautiful, but it doesn't matter because I don't care anymore."

Laura felt dizzy and stumbled as she let herself fall into his arms. They felt warm and strong, but they were reserved arms. They were not welcoming arms. They were the arms of a person trying to let go.

"You don't love me. I can tell."

"I tried to love you. But things are different now."

Laura closed her eyes. She felt a dark undertow grab her and pull her down. It was a pleasant sensation, one that even was preferable to lying in his arms. It was one that wanted her, one that was calling her to drop everything and come and join it in a soft eternity where no one was cruel and no one wanted to hurt her. She took one last breath and then all went blank.

As she slept she became aware that her mind was becoming more and more lively and active. She felt as though in her sleep she was more awake than she had been before she had fallen asleep. Her mind was acute and sharp, moving with dazzling skill and speed from one image to the next as it flowed through a world of pure sensation and color. In her penultimate dream she was lying on a stone floor, her lips pressed tightly against a small bed of moss, while somewhere in the distance she could hear the sound of water dripping. She knew the room – or whatever it might be (a mausoleum in Istanbul?) – was empty but she had the intuitive sense that she was being held there and was not free to leave. If she tried, whomever it was that was keeping her would quickly come and stop her, and maybe even punish her. So, all she did was think. As time passed the swath of her thoughts got broader and broader until she was sure that she had thought everything that a person could possibly think in a lifetime. And then it was over. She had never imagined an eternity could pass so quickly. But the intermission was even shorter. In her final dream she was walking alone in a bright and sunny garden wearing a floral patterned sun hat and a loose summer dress. It was a landscape of emotion with little action. She felt strong, happy, and free in a way that she had never felt in her entire life. It was as though she was a female Buddha who had just stood up from the shade of her tree to greet a new world ready to celebrate her visions. She walked along the garden path and followed a small dog up a narrow trail past a bank of carefully trimmed shrubbery until she reached a house. She opened the heavy wooden door and stepped inside. The air was cold and musty and it was too dark to see. The dog stood outside the door and watched her standing there, and then it ran away, as though it had just been whistled for by its owner – but there was no sound. She felt her way into the house, struggling to make out what she could in front of her with what little light there was. She crossed a threshold into a second room and felt a light switch on the wall. She flicked it and when the room clicked into focus she saw herself lying on a stone floor with her lips pressed up against a small patch of moss. It was then that she screamed and woke up in a cold sweat. She looked around. It was a room she recognized. It was a room she had been in before. It was Gregory's room. She had a vague memory of being humiliated by someone, but the memory contained no further information beyond the memory of the emotion. It was like the aftertaste of something one couldn't quite identify. Her clothes felt sticky against her body. She hadn't washed for days.

She got out of bed and walked slowly towards the door. If this was Gregory's apartment, he might be in one of the other rooms. When she opened the door, he was standing there in front of her wearing a charcoal gray windowpane suit, framed with narrow satin lapels. He looked like he was getting ready to attend an awards dinner in the entertainment industry.

"You slept for almost eighteen hours."

"What am I doing here?"

"I'm not sure. Why don't you tell me? Do you think that I would want you here after what happened between us?"

"What did happen?"

"Would you like me to define it?"

"If you will."

"OK. You screwed me over. How's that?"

Laura already felt herself becoming less sympathetic, less guilty for what she had done to him. There was a point when a person you once wronged went too far in holding it against you. A lack of forgiveness is as good a reason as any to hold a grudge. It gives you firm grounds to shed your guilt and feel justified, at least in part, for whatever you did to them in the first place. And that's when things were truly over.

"What happened?"

"Somebody called and told me that you were passed out in a park and that I should come and get you."

"Passed out? Which park? Who called?"

"How should I know? It was a female voice. She said she had found my number in your pocket. Fancy that. And it was in Central Park by the lake that I found you. You were asleep. I thought you had been drugged."

"By who?"

"Why don't you tell me? Most people who are found unconscious in a park are taken directly to the hospital. Whoever called didn't want the authorities to know."

Laura looked him directly in the eyes and then shifted her gaze to the floor. He looked sincere enough, but there was something dishonest in his aloof sense of distraction. She struggled to piece things together in her head, but she couldn't.

"I don't know. I feel like a whole section of my life disc has been erased. The last thing I remember was sitting in a bar..." She let her thoughts linger for a moment on the vague fragments of memory still loose in her mind. Then a figure took shape. A few of the pieces fell together and new ones emerged from the darkness. "Halo, that was it. I was leaving him in the bar. That was my last memory. Then I woke up. And that was just a few minutes ago."

"Halo?"

"The man who said he was an investigator. The man who..." Gregory glared at her with incrimination. "I'm sorry," she said.

"Don't worry," Gregory said with a disquieting lack of concern. "It's all over. There's no way I can let myself love a woman who would be so dishonest. It's like finding out your boyhood idol beat his wife and molested his kids. You just can't look at things the same way ever again."

Gregory stepped backwards in the direction of the door. She took it as a sign. He had taken her in and saved her as a last gesture of goodwill. Now that she had come to, he wanted her to leave. Once she was gone she would probably never see him again. He would become the kind of person she would even avoid if she ever saw them in a grocery store, suddenly shifting her cart in the opposite direction if she saw him turning into the aisle she had just entered.

"I really did care about you. I wouldn't have slept with you if I hadn't."

"It really doesn't matter," he said. There was a look in his face that was neither warm nor cold. Yet it was distant, so distant, in fact, that she wondered if she had ever really known the person standing in front of her and if anything had ever really transpired between them. Their closeness was a memory that was now overwritten by the reality that stood before her. If she had ever seen him again before this look, she would have been able to recall in vivid detail the night they spent together in his apartment. But now even this was impossible. The bytes on the hard drive of her mind had been irreversibly modified and the original file no longer existed.

"I understand," she said. "I appreciate you letting me stay." She reached out her hand to touch his, but he recoiled slightly, and then turned to grab her coat. She hadn't noticed it had been sitting on the chair behind him all along. He held it out to her and she accepted it begrudgingly.

"Don't ever call me again," he said. "It wasn't a pleasant experience – knowing you."

Laura nodded reluctantly and slipped into her coat. Gregory opened the door and pointed to her purse, which was sitting on the floor beside the closet. It was the second personal item she had failed to notice while they had been standing there. She turned and walked away in silence, avoiding Gregory's glance as she did so. She waited for the sound of the door slamming, but heard nothing. She tightened her buttocks and hunched over slightly, captivated by the sensation that he was standing behind her watching her walk away, his mind filled with venomous thoughts against her. She had been in this situation before - walking away from him - but this time she knew it was the end. When, indeed, was it really time for love?

## BOOK 6

### Chapter 6.1

What is there ever left to say when a story reaches its end? Laura didn't know. Laura never knew. That was the joke. That was the trick. She once thought she knew. Just like everyone else. But she never did (really). Perhaps there was nothing left at all but the vague hope that she might one day see that special person again, the one who had played such a pivotal role in whatever reawakening had brought them to her in the first place. And if she ever did see that person again – Gregory, let's call him, no...Halo, that's better – what would he do but approach her with some platitude that would leave her wishing she had never run into them in the first place. That was the joke – the point of no return after which she could only destroy that which had already been destroyed a thousand times over by her longing for what could never be again. Don't open that door. Don't reach for that phone. No, don't you dare dial. You'll kill it. You'll stick the last of your thousand daggers into its ailing body and it will never be able to stand up and hold you again.

It was the same old story she always heard from everyone else. If there was one thing she knew for sure, it was that she knew this story well. It happened all the time to everyone else and always in exactly the same way. It happened when everyone else was looking, watching, and hoping that just once it wouldn't happen in exactly the same way it always did. Just once, they all hoped with eager disillusioned eyes, could it please be different? Could it? Please? But it wasn't possible. And that's what brought out her tears, the great antediluvian rush of tears that still hasn't ended and never will. No. It was never different. Not even for Laura, _the first woman of the twenty first century_ , was it different. And that was the other joke. The worse joke. The fact that it didn't matter who you were in the end. Everyone died the same slow death. Everyone thought they were Ingrid Bergman or Marlene Dietrich searching for Byzantium - or was it Coney Island, Tupelo, or Kandahar? But they didn't even know where they were to begin with, so how could they even get there? Or maybe they were already there and didn't even know it. The world had blindfolded them and they were walking across whatever tightrope they didn't even know they were crossing (or sailing - isn't that so much nicer?) on their way to Byzantium (or wherever else it was, because that didn't matter either - it actually mattered less than anything else). So, then, what did matter?

These were Laura's thoughts. These were her thoughts as she stood there in her apartment just existing - does anyone really do anything else but _exist_ when all is said and done? She was waiting for Mace (Halo) to call. Waiting for things to return to normal so she could start that endless process of forgetting, which would ultimately culminate in her waking up ten years later in the middle of the night screaming Johnny Enzyme's (Stork's) name, wishing it was that dark stranger for once that had called earlier and not a telephone solicitor from some nebulous Pakistani call center selling a new long-distance plan, Wi-Fi package, or whatever else it was that didn't matter either. And so late in the day. So, what did matter? That was the question Laura was struggling with as she stood there just existing. Yes... _just existing_.

Laura lifted her arm and stretched it towards the ceiling, working out a muscle near her armpit that she had never experienced in such purity of isolation. It was seven in the evening. Outside she could hear what she imagined was a diesel truck belching out smoke from its church-organ chrome exhaust stacks. When the phone rang she had the vague sensation that it was somebody other than whomever she knew was calling. Maybe it wasn't Mace. Maybe, just maybe...

"Hello," she said expectantly.

A sniffling sound, which became gradually more intense, met her at the other end. There was a snort and then a cough. It was Mace. Naturally.

"I just thought I'd call you and see if I can come over a little earlier." He was a touch gentler than usual. At least that much had changed. Yet she wasn't sure this was a change for the good or the bad. You never knew anymore. That was the thing about the twenty first century: not knowing. That's the one thing she had figured out. It wasn't a century of furious or even vague rebellion; those had been done before. Those things were twentieth – maybe even nineteenth – century themes. No, she knew this much. She was _the first woman of the twenty first century_ after all, and if she knew anything it was this.

"Sure," she said.

"An hour?"

"That's fine. Don't forget..."

"To bring my Tango records?"

"That, too. I was going to say not to forget to stop and get a bottle of wine. Malbec would be nice. It will go with the music."

"Sure," he said. "Dona Laura. I'll be there soon."

He hung up and Laura stared into the receiver for a moment before finally setting it down. Her world took on a suffocating sense of smallness and familiarity, an old school whose walls and stairwells she knew far too well to ever feel right going there again. Shrunken. Back to normal. That was it. Yet at the same time, she felt relieved. She had shrugged off her problem. Halo and Gregory would no longer trouble her. Or maybe they would, but indirectly without even knowing it, only as memories or ghosts, like Tünde and Star. Like Johnny Enzyme. But weren't ghosts more dangerous than the living? Whenever she would look out the window into the bronze and stone rupture of the Manhattan skyline she would think of the promising glimmer of Halo's voice that first night at Selbey's, or the moment at Crystal Palace she saw him meeting the stranger, or maybe even the tender excitement of Gregory's (Stork's) body up against hers. Smaller. Hemmed in. Older. But somehow more comfortable. Byzantium. Who had really won?

When Mace showed up he was carrying a brown liquor bag in one hand and a small stack of LPs in the other. His cheeks were rosy as though it was cold outside, but she knew it wasn't.

"You have a rash," she said.

"I always have a rash. I'm a rash person. Everyone says that."

"Do you have a fever?" She set her palm on his forehead, but he pulled away.

"I'm fine," he said.

"Are you? Really?"

"What's this all about? I come over and get the third degree. You're just like one of the goddamn nurses in that goddamn jail I spent so many goddamn years in."

She took the bag from his hand and walked into the kitchen, removing the bottle and setting it neatly on the kitchen counter. It was an expensive Malbec they had never tried before. It didn't matter if it was good or not in the past, so why should it now? She felt Mace touch her from behind her and press his chest against her back. He wrapped his arms around her as she pulled out the corkscrew and opened the bottle.

"It needs some air," he said. "Everyone knows that wine needs a little air when you open it. You don't have to be on _Masterchef_ to know that." He licked her ear. His tongue felt coarse, almost prickly - like a five o'clock shadow. It was a sensation that she always liked, but right now her mind was set on something else.

"Are you finally going to tell me what you were put in jail for?"

Mace shrugged his shoulders and turned away. It was the same old question he always got. She knew she would never get the real answer. Never. Yet she asked anyway. Never. That was the conditions of the relationship. Mace picked up the cork and lifted it to his nose. "Now that I've been cleared from that ridiculous theft incident, I feel like I've been too good." He set the cork down with a quick nod of approval and started licking her cheek. "It's been a long time. You and all your nights at Selbey's. And that trip to England. You're lucky to be alive. You're lucky Ray and I didn't follow you and see what you really did over there."

"It's all just business," she said. She wondered if there was something in the tone of her voice that might have tipped him off that there was more to it than that. There was more to everything. That was the key. That was the one secret she thought she had learned through all this. More of everything. Maybe there were even more secrets to learn. Nothing was really what it was. Mace wasn't a brute. Gregory wasn't a crook. And Halo wasn't a cop. That much she knew for sure. But there was always something else. Something else.

"It makes things tolerable," she said.

"What in hell are you talking about?"

"Age. Getting older. Life. The world makes things tolerable. It has a way of strengthening and softening just the right things. There's always something you missed. Some thought, some perspective. Some solution. Some cure."

"That's what you need. A cure. I think you've been hanging out with sappy office types for a little bit too long and need a little Mace to cure your mind."

He caressed her hips and walked into the living room. Moments later a rich Latin voice blossomed into the silent vacuum of her apartment. It was a song that she had heard countless times before, but this time she felt it was different. Since a piece of music was only what it meant to you, every time you changed so, too, did every note you ever listened to. When Mace came back she recognized for the first time since she was eighteen that her world was different than it had been before. Different. She let the word linger in her mind like the scent of pine needles in a dark forest. When she was seventeen everything was rigid, methodical, safe. There were set rules and everything had a sense of symmetry and higher law to it. There was school and home and television and weekend parties. But when she met Johnny Enzyme it all changed. The entire world was rewritten on her eighteenth birthday. History died that day. There were no longer any rules. She was free to make her own. Yet how quickly did all this chaos fall down from the skies to establish a new order, the order of her adulthood. A set of arid routines and laws of love and work and relationships that had its own falcon's hood and its own falcon's talons.

Mace dug his fingers into her hips and grunted. There was a tiny bead of sweat on his forehead. She watched it roll off and disappear into his eyebrow as he dropped slowly to his knees. The disjoint sound of a piano in perfect counterpoint with an off-key accordion cascaded through the room. She closed her eyes and imagined she was flying, skimming even, over the surface of a wild green lake or ocean stretching outwards in all directions with shimmering wavelets wriggling across the surface like silver necklaces shaking in the wind.

"Can a person change inside and still be the same?" she asked.

"Why, are you thinking of changing?"

"I just need to know." Her voice showed more urgency as he began to undo her pants with his mouth. "I feel different."

"Different good or different bad?"

"Good. Definitely good. It must have been Britain. The new perspective."

"Perspective," he repeated in a slow and soothing way that made her feel he approved wholeheartedly.

Outside she heard what sounded like a train whistle, but she knew it couldn't have been a train. She opened her eyes and a pinkish blue cloud spread out in the sky just above the window, seeming to cast a galvanizing influence over everything beneath it and above it - in short, the world. Byzantium. That moment she knew that everything was safely back in place again, yet everything was also somehow different. Empty different. At least she could rest that much in her mind. For only the second time in her life, all history had died and it was time to start all over again.

Chapter 6.2

The world just never stops. It just keeps going further and further and faster and faster, with no regard for anyone at all. It picks you up at some dead-end bus stop, drives you down whatever ghastly route it chooses, and then dumps you off in the middle of some barren slum or expressway with such reckless abandon that you wish you never rode with it at all. That's the horrible thing. The casualties left by the wayside. They're all over the place (really), but the world just doesn't care. All you had to do was walk a few blocks down West Broadway to see what's going on these days with the world and the way it just dumps people off; all its victims strutting down the streets with their outdated clothes and outdated walks. But what nobody ever figures out is that you don't just have to sit there and take it. You can beat the world. You can beat it good and hard. All you had to do is hide behind the backseat when it tries to dump you off. Sure, it will try again a few stops later, but after a while it just gives up and forgets you are there at all. Then you can ride with it forever. Nobody can stop you. There won't be any black-capped driver in the front turning his head and pointing his glowering finger at you when he orders you to get off. Hide out in the high-octane lifestyle. That was what you needed to do. That was how you beat it. Win a little, lose a little, but always ride on with it. Once you get off, there's no getting back on. Not ever. Never.

Gregory took a long seductive drag on a freshly-lit Cuban cigar, dipped in hundred-year-old Grand Marnier and aged in the decaying vaults of a seventeenth century monastery. It was, more precisely, a cigarillo. Cigars were for people from another era. Cigars were for old-timers and has-beens like Ed Asner and Orson Welles, people who _got off_. Gregory savored the thought that once again he would be able recline in the warm entangles of his apartment with a bouncy young sex kitten smoking such a resplendent cigarillo as he downed yet another classic vintage of Montrachet. Who could deny that women were at the center of everything? Babies. Sex. A penis was just a clitoris on steroids. How many people had realized this simple fact? Until the day he died his heart would always light up at the sight of a woman of true pulchritude and virtue. New York was filled with them. It was teeming with women who were _just getting on_. What need was there for women like Laura Chain, who were only out for a quick ride before they chickened out and _got off_?

A few tens of millions lost. That was all it really was in the end. There would be other cash transfers, there always were. What did he have to be afraid of? He was a Republican, after all. They always had the biggest bombs, the hottest women, the finest wine, and the most money. The truly virtuous would make it in spite of Laura Chain. With Donald Trump just announcing a run for presidency that morning, the whole mess of the Obama era would finally be fixed and people like Gregory - real people, the only ones that mattered - would be free to start winning again. Money would soar to the heights of rarified spirituality and Gregory would just keep on going. A few tens of millions lost. Nothing the Carrier couldn't fix with another deal. But that was the secret. It was Gregory's biggest secret, one he had never told anybody, not even the Carrier. He could never tell the Carrier. It just wasn't going to happen. And what was this secret? It was simple. The secret was in itself the reason why he couldn't tell the Carrier. That was the secret. But there was more. The Carrier never got on at all. The Carrier was neither on nor off. He was somewhere in the middle, flying from virtual city to virtual city as he surfed the financial web hunting down one loose business transaction after another. The world never had to worry about letting the Carrier on or kicking him off. He wasn't there at all, and never was. The Carrier just _wasn't_. And that was it.

Gregory punched a few numbers in the computer and watched as a cornucopia of new numbers spilled out. If you surfed the net long enough there was always a secret cupboard just waiting to have you poke your finger in and take a slice of someone else's pie. He picked up his phone and dialed. The lights were dead, but a voice answered anyway.

"I was expecting you sooner," said the Carrier.

"Sorry," said Gregory. "I was healing a broken heart. She's gone now."

"There's more where she came from."

"And there's more money out there as well."

"I'm in Buenos Aires now. No time to check. Just keep waiting. I'll have something soon. Just keep waiting."

A twelve-digit number popped up on the blank screen and The Carrier read it out to him. It was always good to have the Carrier around. Since Gregory was a child, the Carrier never let him down. Left alone in his playroom while his parents argued downstairs, Monte was always there. His parents could never see The Carrier and even took Gregory to a doctor to ask why they couldn't see him, but Gregory knew Monte was always there and would never let him down.

"That's great," he said.

"Do you need more?"

"I'll be fine."

The line went dead with no warning as though the satellite connection had just been interrupted. Gregory put the phone down and took a long languid draw on the cigarillo. Talking to himself was always so much fun. He looked out the window. Parked in the street below he saw two police cars. Their lights were still flashing and an officer was leaning against the front hood of the first car talking into his radio. It looked as though he was awaiting final orders to move in and complete an operation. For a moment Gregory thought that they might be coming for him. But it was a notion that didn't last long. Laura's story was most likely a lie. What seemed more plausible was that she took the money herself. She wasn't making enough in advertising and needed more to support her fur coat habit. Women were like that. They pretended to love you and made up outrageous stories to cover the fact that they had just done you in. She had just made up Halo to deal with her guilt and make it seem that someone else had driven her to such a heinous and unjustifiable act. Women were never good at taking the blame. They just weren't used to it. Blame was built for men. Treachery was built for women.

The downstairs buzzer rang and Gregory went over to press the "enter" button. A minute later there was a faint knocking at the door and Gregory opened it. An Asian woman slinked in and giggled. She was wearing an impossibly orange mohair sweater, which stretched down so far as to almost engulf her metallic red miniskirt, the hem of which was almost touching the tops of her tall black boots. She carried an i-pod in one hand and a small pink teddy bear in the other. Her name was Geisha, as in Geisha girl (women were so predictable, weren't they?). She said she had come to New York in search of a mentor to teach her about "art" and "finance", the two things she deemed most important in modern life. What she had yet to learn was that they were one and the same.

"Hello," she said. She held out her pink teddy for Gregory to kiss it. "Felix loves the West. He can't get enough of it."

"Well, Mr. Felix," he said, now holding the furry toy up to his face, "I just want you to know that I like Asian things as much as you like Western things. You wouldn't be here now if that wasn't the case."

She retracted her prop and stuffed it into a shoulder bag she had gradually let slide down the side of her arm as she stood there talking. "Mr. Felix has a good sense about people. He knows the good from the bad. That's why I brought him here with me. In Tokyo the good and the bad are very clearly labeled, or at least they used to be. But in New York you need help. You need advisors."

"Antennas," Gregory corrected her. "You can't even trust your advisors. You need antennas like an enormous butterfly." Geisha smiled as she savored the image. He took her shoulder bag and reached for her i-pod before she pulled it back into her breasts.

"No," she said softly. "I always carry my i-pod everywhere. I even sleep with it. The world is so fast these days, you never know when you might be missing a chance to plug into something completely new before someone else does it first."

"That was going to be my first lesson. The ground floor. Lesson one. Take it or leave it. If you want to be number one in art or finance you have to keep your ear to the ground. You have to listen to the dirt and the worms. In the end it's the dirt and the worms that always let you in first. If you don't get down on your knees and kiss dirt you won't get anywhere."

"That's very wise, Gregory, but I've known that since I was in grade school back in Kyoto."

Gregory took her by the hand and led her into his living room. A bottle of Chassagne Montrachet sat breathing on the coffee table. "Don't you drink white wine chilled?" she asked in the tone of a thinly veiled judgment.

"Actually not. Perhaps that will be your second lesson. In finance you learn these things quickly. A fine white Burgundy is meant to be consumed at room temperature. Yet red Burgundy, contrary to intuition, should be slightly chilled. It gives the bouquet more delineation. Venus and Mars."

"And that is my second lesson? I'm frankly quite disappointed. I came to learn about "art" and "finance". She wiggled her hips up to his and planted a long succulent kiss on his lips. In his mind Gregory likened it to a draw on one of the cigarillos he had just been smoking. Warm, long, and sexy.

"So," he said, pulling back from her. "Before I start on the fourth lesson, I have to give you the third."

"Which is?" She was already taking her sweater off. Japan suddenly seemed like the kind of place Gregory wanted to visit very soon. Why had he waited so long to book a flight?

"To make money, you have to find money first. But the trick is to make sure it isn't your money at all and that nobody sees you with it, asks for a return, or even knows you've used it to make more money. That way nobody knows you have anything and nobody is mad because they haven't lost anything."

His mind drifted into a miniature world comprised only by the perfect red circles of her nipples, and then to methods of birth control. "Money is like foam. It's hard to quantify. If a little foam goes missing from a big mass of it, nobody will ever notice."

"And what is the fourth lesson?" she asked, her pants now on the floor as she tried to take a last step out of them.

"That I should be undressed by now."

Just then the buzzer rang. "Ignore it," Gregory said. "It's probably someone I don't want to see.

"Sounds OK to me. The world should stop bothering people when they don't want to be bothered."

"Wouldn't it be nice?"

Gregory pressed up against the soft toffee of her body. He caught a vague whiff of an unidentified animalistic scent lingering behind her perfume like mud around pearls. He rubbed his chest back and forth against her breasts, savoring the warm and cold tickle against his skin. She wrapped her hand around his penis, but it was still soft.

There was a second knock at the door, this time more insistent.

"Don't worry," he said. He ran his finger up her body and pushed her back onto the coffee table behind her. She eased herself down on the glossy surface and let out a sudden shriek. A large wine glass had just fallen behind her and shattered.

"Damn," he shouted. He reached over the table behind her to pick up the stem of the glass but lost his balance and tripped. There was a loud thud and he leapt up almost as quickly as he had fallen. Geisha was now sitting there - all curled up naked on the coffee table - laughing, her Asian mouth assuming an almost idiotic sense of scale.

"Your arm is bleeding," she said.

"What is so goddamn funny?" he shouted.

"Who was laughing?"

There was a third knock at the door and Gregory stomped across the room to answer it.

"If this is what you fucking want Mr. Vacuum cleaner salesman, this is what you fucking get. You can gawk at my dick all you want!"

He threw the door open and towered there like a Greek warrior facing an enemy he was about to vanquish. On the other side of the threshold stood a middle-aged man in a police outfit. He had a large catfish mustache and was holding a radio in his hand. Behind him, a second man, also in a police uniform, was standing like a wax dummy. He looked younger than the first man, like a Mormon on his first stint of recruitment duties. What was this, Gregory thought, a costume party? He hadn't remembered being invited to one. A _Village People_ reunion?

"We're looking for Gregory Walden," the older man said. There was a serious tone to his voice that scared Gregory. He looked straight into Gregory's eyes as though he wasn't even naked and he was just there to do his job no matter what it entailed.

"Well I hope you're satisfied. _This_ is Gregory Walden." He pointed at his penis and squeezed it in his fist like he would have done to a small rodent caught on a piece of farmland. "Say Hello, Gregory," he said in a baby voice, smiling down at his penis. Geisha ran up behind him. In all the sudden drama she had somehow managed to find a towel to wrap around her. It made him feel excluded. He was the only naked one now. She had betrayed him.

"Get your clothes on," ordered the police officer. He was shaking his head in what looked like pity. "You're wanted for tax evasion and money laundering. If you have anything to say in your defense, you can say it down at the station."

Gregory grabbed the towel from Geisha and wrapped it around himself. "Go on," he shouted at her. "You heard the man. Get dressed and get out of here." She scurried back into the apartment, crouching over fretfully, her arms folded across her breasts.

"You pay for this," she shouted, her English regressing to that of the stereotypical Asian grocery store owner. "No one treat me like this and get way with it!"

Gregory retreated slowly back into his apartment, the police officers turning towards each other in apparent disgust. He felt suddenly dizzy as he began pacing back and forth desperately in search of clothes. He put one sock on, and then his underwear. There had to be some mistake. The Carrier would never let such a thing happen. The Carrier just wouldn't allow it. Police stations were only for people who _got off_. What was the world coming to? He glanced out the window at the police cars down on the first floor. Their lights looked pretty, almost soothing, in the dying light of the evening.

Chapter 6.3

John Halo cut the end off of his breakfast sausage and held it in front of his mouth with his fork for a moment while swallowing his previous bite. Then he wrapped his lips around the succulent hot slice and gently pulled the fork away. His mouth basked in a warm smoked maple flavor that reminded him of the small Devonshire farm where he had spent much of his childhood.

"Wonderful sausages, these" he exclaimed to his wife, who was standing with her back to him, washing the dining room window with a small red cloth. She was wearing a boxy blue cotton dress so free of sensual references it would have made anyone else look like a cleaning lady. But on her it looked just right. "Where did you get them?"

"Just down at the shops, love. The butcher said they were special and he wouldn't be getting any more in for a few weeks, if that. So I bought them while I had a chance." She was still facing the window, her hand making bold circular sweeps on the pane as she continued. "The poor man. He said his son's been getting in with the wrong crowd again. He was caught shoplifting only a few months ago with some first formers from Brixton."

"I remember that. I saw him down at the station that night. Looked like a good lad, though. Maybe things aren't right at home."

"Do you reckon?" She stepped away from the window and turned around with a tiny unassuming smile on her face that wouldn't have looked out of place in a small corner shop. "I always thought they were a good family."

"Maybe you're right, then. Maybe he's just a bad one or he's going through a bad patch."

Halo poured himself a half-cup of tea and topped it up to the brim with cereal cream. It was the way he liked his tea - thick and sweet, a confectioner's syrup of oolong and milk rather than those watery green health infusions that seemed to be getting more popular all the time.

"So what did you get up to, then last time you were in America? I haven't even had a chance to ask, you've been so busy."

"Just an arrest. There was a man who was known for his skills in illegally shifting money around. We had to set him up. But countless operations have gone much the same way."

"Did you bring anything back?"

"I bought you a set of new china. It should be delivered next week."

"Who else do you know that would go all the way to America for china? It's a wee bit odd, isn't it? I thought it was Americans that came to Britain for theirs."

"When I was a young man, my father always taught me to be grateful for a gift."

"You know I'm just winding you up, love." She stretched over from her hips while keeping her back straight, almost like an ostrich, and kissed him on the head.

"And I am just playing along with you." He pulled back and relaxed his posture.

"Now eat the rest of your meal before it gets cold," she said. She smiled brightly and left the room, leaving Halo to stare out the freshly cleaned window into the garden. The greens looked dark and rich under the muted gray sky and the thin veil of rain had intensified the vibrant blues and pinks of the flower petals.

When he finished his breakfast he watched his wife wash the dishes and then went up to the bedroom for a short nap. For some reason he was still tired and it would be a long evening ahead: he had several meetings planned at the office and then he had a rendezvous in Regent's Park with a representative from a local leftist group. The man was wanted in Germany and France for fraud. Because of the respective extradition agreements, it was important that they exercised only the greatest degree of stealth when negotiating. But that was what Halo was known for. That was his occupation. Giving the Russian hackers access to the Starlight account a few days before he handed it over to the Chief inspector - and hence the FBI - was only one such example. Even though they would use the money to fund a cell in Brussels, it was necessary to deconstruct the state and help the new world order come into being. Stealing from Gregory Walden who stole from billionaires and using the stolen money to support the terror groups that created the very fear that allowed the far right governments who supported those same billionaires to flourish: there was an almost Zen-like sense of symmetry and beauty to it. Like moral roundedness. It was the secret of living in the modern world. Only with moral roundedness was it possible to please everyone and ascend to the state of ethical transcendence foreshadowed by such great minds as Kant and Hume.

Halo gathered his shoes and lightly polished them before putting them on, tying each lace with care and precision as though they were the last golden strands of a dying angel's hair. The real problem with the world was one of vision and complicity. Not poverty and greed like people said. Everyone saw things as though from the base of a valley. It was like looking at a map of the world on its side. Only the very few had the courage and stamina to ascend to the highest peaks of the mountain where they could see everything as it really was. Many thinkers had the right idea, but were completely unable to put it into practice. No one philosophy was right. All of them were. And all of them weren't. So only by working for opposing sides was it possible to rise above the world and gain spiritual perfection. Communism versus capitalism, Christianity versus Islam, religion versus secularism: only by bracing all poles was it possible to see the truth. Only by pitting all sides against all others was it possible to unify the world and move on to the next stage of social evolution. Man rose from the primordial swamp man to meet God and create the world as it is today, but only by destroying everything Man created was it possible to make God and the swamp one. Resolution. Trinity. Peace. In short, deconstruction of the State. That was Halo's vision. He grabbed his tweed jacket and fisherman's cap and walked to the door.

"Dearie," his wife exclaimed as she suddenly popped up from behind him. "Make sure that you drop off at the Ogilvie's on the way to the shops if you're planning on going up that way. I told them you'd be by to return the shovel we borrowed last week." She opened the front closet and pointed to a shovel that was standing on its blade.

"Of course, love," he said. "I wouldn't forget Nigel. He's a good bloke if there ever was one. Now that you mention it, I think I owe him a pint from the last time we went down to the pub."

"Just make sure you don't come stumbling in with the smell of alcohol and curry on your breath. When you and Nigel get up to drinking anything can happen and usually does."

"No worries, love." He reached into the closet and grabbed the shovel. It was lighter than it looked, but would have made a formidable weapon on the field. "Do you realize that independence in France was won with peasants holding up things like this?" He brandished it in the air.

"Coming from France, I wouldn't doubt it. I hear they don't wash there either. Maybe they use shovels to scrape off the dirt every few years when it's thick enough."

"I wouldn't be surprised." He kissed his wife on the cheek.

"Make sure you don't get into the habit of kissing the other one or they might start taking you for Frenchman down at the office."

"That'll be the day," he said. He turned and walked out the door into the gray light of the afternoon, using the shovel as a walking stick, blade down to the ground and scraping ever so slightly against the concrete as he walked.

At the end of the block he spotted Ogilvie standing in his garden watering a tree. Halo waved as he approached. "So, Nigel, it looks like you're growing yourself a right forest here."

"A damn right forest." He looked at the shovel. "So you brought the spade back. Not that I was worrying, but the wife was getting on my back to either pick it up or buy a new one."

"Our apologies," said Halo. "A man needs to work in his garden."

"Indeed."

"Well, if you don't mind I'll have to be on my way. I have a note at home that says I owe you a few down at the Green Man from last time."

"No worries. Whenever you're up for it."

"An old man like me? Up for it?" Halo chuckled. "Me and the wife hardly do it any more. An old man needs his rest. But I tell you what. I haven't been out for a few days. Why not tonight?"

"Eightish?"

"Sure. And I'll buy."

"We're on, then."

Halo tipped his fishing hat and walked on. The air had a deep fragrance to it mixed with the smell of smoke and death. Burning flesh and flowers. The smell of war. That's what people never knew. On television war was always shown in terms of explosions and death in the bitter aftermath of anger and tears. No one ever showed the flowers blooming beside the rows of barbed wire. No one ever talked of the couples embracing just a block away from the battle front. No one ever talked about the lush gardens of Riga during the days of the Soviet occupation bases. No one really knew the truth of war, the moment of absolute beauty and perfection that preceded any great act of destruction. A smear of lipstick, a shot of perfumed hair, a man, a woman. And then the blackened stench of death. He had seen it countless times before and would see it countless times still. The flowers of doomsday, the white swans of destruction. Beauty in the midst of chaos. Equanimity in the face of conflict. That was what he stood for. And a man had to stand for something these days. A man had to _be_ something.

Halo walked through the light of the blue-black day. He stopped in front of a row of dilapidated houses built from small gray bricks, now covered with moss and lichen long since bleached by the sun and smog. A small girl approached. She was pushing a toy baby carriage and had mustard smeared across her face. She looked sad, but in a way that made Halo feel elevated: life was a work of feeling and emotion. Any act of feeling on the part of another was an act of God, and was hence a cause for jubilation. He tipped his cap to the girl and she grinned as though embarrassed.

"Good day," he said.

The girl laughed and suddenly ran away, shoving the carriage over and leaving it on the sidewalk behind her. When she vanished behind a wall of shrubs Halo picked up the carriage and neatly set it off the path of the sidewalk. It was the least he could do for the young lady. After all, he was an Englishman, and Englishmen were first and foremost gentlemen. And who could deny the importance of being a gentleman? That was the problem with the world. People held onto their prejudices more strongly than they held on to their love for one another. That's why the race of men was doomed. They were barbaric animals scraping away at one another's dens, vying for the last scrap of food. And so they had to be taught. They had to be _made_ into men of honor and dignity - that was the real reason for all suffering.

Halo navigated past a complex of old row houses and down a small high street featuring a Laundromat, a Tandori house, a bedding shop, and a post office. It was a decent street, of a kind that was lacking in places like New York. It was the sort of street that made him proud to be an Englishmen. A crowd of people emerged from a subway station and Halo pushed through them as he carved his way to the next stoplight. It was going to be a long day and he had precious little time to get to Regents Square for his scheduled rendezvous.

### Chapter 6.4

Laura turned her head in the direction of the door as she took a sip of her martini. She was alone again. She was at Selbey's. That much hadn't changed. But everything else had. She had finally even got the joke. It hurt so much she wanted to cry. It was a big black pain, the kind that lingers on inside you like a dark apocalyptic landscape. If there was a first woman of the twenty-first century, there would have to be a first woman of the twenty-second century. And the twenty-third. In the end infinity caught up to all of us and made a big joke of everything. Infinity made a joke of everything, following everyone to the grave just so it could press the reset button and start all over again with someone else as though nothing had ever mattered at all. Infinity knew no progress. Infinity was stubborn, even degenerate. Ten times infinity was still infinity. You could multiply it, but then you couldn't. A third of infinity was just as big as infinity itself. It just wasn't fair. Infinity – the long dark cyclone – was everywhere. And it was laughing at all of us.

But things got worse. Not only were there countless "first" women past and yet-to-come to usher in each new century, but she wasn't even _the first woman of the twenty-first century_. It was all a hoax. She was just another person living in New York. _The first woman of the twenty-first century_ was born on New Year's Eve after some big millennium party, no...that was the first girl. The first woman was born eighteen years later (down to the last second) in bed with some Johnny Enzyme clone (there was always another one, wasn't there?) – and that's what really hurt. Missing it by a whole month and not just a few seconds. Was she really that pathetic?

Her eyes paused on the headlines of the newspaper in front of her. A bomb had exploded somewhere in Belgium and ISIS had claimed responsibility. On the bottom of the page was a photo of Gregory heading a second article. "Money scam..." it read. The article went on to describe him as though he were some kind of international criminal, making her feel only slightly less guilty than she had before – but what was he, _really_? She didn't even know that. She pushed the paper away from her and took a long meditative sip of her martini. A man wearing a tawny Stetson and deeply engraved white cowboy boots walked by and smiled at her in the manner of a southern gentleman. Stork. He went over to join a group of Middle Eastern businessmen at a table on the other side of the bar. Halo. Was it a secret message life was sending to her? He pulled out a chair and joined them without stopping to introduce himself, as though he had been sitting there all along. Then he tipped his hat and gestured to the waiter, pointing at a drink standing in front of the man to his left.

She pulled the paper back and finished the article on Gregory. Computer hacker and millionaire playboy. Short selling, round trip trading, Bitcoin, money laundering...the Russian Mafia was even mentioned as playing a role on the sidelines. His computer was seized and the FBI was inspecting the hard drive. A spokesman was sure they would find something to put him behind bars. The authorities claimed that the stolen funds were missing, but they were confident he had just relocated them into a secret offshore account. But she knew otherwise. Maybe it was poetic justice for what happened to Mace and what happened with Stork, the one man who never loved her. But it still made her feel empty. Mace was a criminal. Gregory was a criminal. Halo was a criminal. But last of all... yes...Laura was a criminal. The biggest of them all. A criminal against herself. And so was Johnny Enzyme, Mace, Tünde, and Star. All the best people were criminals and so were all the worst. The only people who weren't, were those that didn't matter at all.

Laura pushed the paper away and a feeling came over her like she was suddenly a lot older than she had ever been and was looking in panorama at everything that had ever happened to her - up to the point when the man had just walked in with the cowboy hat - as though it was so long ago it may just as well have happened to a different person, a lot younger and less mature. Age, like infinity, was a force that stood outside of life pointing a mocking finger at her from somewhere out there in its great dark landscape.

She looked at her blurred reflection in the smoothly lacquered bar and a devastating question entered her head. Who would call her next, taunting her about some nonsense only to vanish into the bleak suburban night? Would it be someone from Byzantium at long last, whisking her away on a golden dolphin into the depths of the wild pink sunset? It was all about not knowing, wasn't it? As she sat numbly in her stool, she conceded she would never know whether it was Mace that Gregory had pointed out, or what Mace had done to end up in jail the first time. Neither would she know what Halo was really doing and what Gregory had really done, or what Tünde and Star were doing at any given moment or what Johnny Enzyme was thinking the moment his car flew off the road in Jamaica. And all those Iraqi soldiers killing Kurdish children – all lies packaged as truth of the worst kind. Advertising. Media. Film. The poetry of deception. The poetry of money. The poetry of death. Ingrid Bergman knew she was being used and fell in love with the man who was using her. Marlene Dietrich knew she was being used and defied everyone to fall in love with the enemy – who was also using her – and then got shot for doing so. What was Laura's story? What was it... _really_?

She finished her martini and picked up her purse, leaving a ten-dollar bill as a tip at the bar, and walked out into the crisp dry night. Mace would be over in half an hour and she wanted to get home early enough to take a shower and change her clothes. A yellow cab snaked along the curb and stopped for a moment before accelerating through the intersection. Tomorrow would be the first day of her life and from that moment onwards everything would be different and nothing would ever be the same. The story of her youth had finally reached its end.

### THE END

