She opened and closer her hands in frustration. 'We're just a clinic, you know? We patch people up and send 'em home. We're not set-up to do goddam research.'
Skid leaned back against the computer console, fingers busy in his breast pocket. He pulled out a crumpled pack of Beedees, broke off the filter and lit one up. The burning rope-smell of cheap Indian tobacco filled the room. 'We've got scouts out, keeping tabs on how the military handles things. Also, we're watching traffic in and out of New Hope. Figure those assholes'll have access to any new vaccines before they hit the street.'
'Sounds reasonable,' said Jonny. He watched the monitors over Skid's shoulder. They were cycling through a programmed surveillance routine, displaying a series of grainy views of the Croakers' underground lair. The greenhouse, with its newly patched bubble. Machine shops. A young Mestizo girl leading a group of patients to the surface. The surgery. The children. 'Listen, I'm sorry if I'm a little of jumpy,' Jonny said. 'Truth is, I'm hurting and nervous and probably still a little punch drunk. You guys- this set-up- it's a lot to take in at once, you know?'
'You have a talent for pissing people off,' said Ice. But it was a small reprove, pouting and indulgent. 'You'll be all right though, officer.'
'Definitely all right. I sense star quality here,' Skid said. He puffed at the Beedee and smiled broadly. 'You gonna want to see Groucho?'
'Yeah, is he back yet?' asked Ice.
'About an hour ago.'
'Aces,' Ice replied. She draped an arm across Jonny's shoulders. 'Looks like you get an audience with the most wanted man in California.'
'Sounds like fun,' said Jonny.
'He is.'
Skid the Kid raised his eyebrows. 'Yeah, like the riddle of the Sphinx.'
Jonny followed Ice and Skid past empty and subterranean shop fronts. Each deserted glass facade presented him with a different and more bizarre tableau. He remembered that Ice had said they were all artists down here. He supposed that had something to do with the strange windows. Behind one, an animated hologram, something like a Mandala or a printed circuit, showed men and women experiencing all fifty-eight versions of the Tantric afterlife. Another seemed to hold a shooting gallery. A vacuumed-suited mannequin was mounted on a revolving wheel of fortune, animal and machine fetishes dangling from its arms and neck. Jonny's legs shook with the sub-sonic rumbling of traffic overhead. He thought of ghost trains moving through the metro tunnels on endless runs, the passengers turning to dust as they held onto the overhead straps. His reflection in a window startled him, and he hurried to catch up with the others.
'Nice architecture you got down here,' Jonny said. 'I dig the style. Early Nervous Breakdown, right?'
They walked through an empty lobby, behind a semi-circular wall of frosted glass, into the old metro line security complex. Ice knocked on a door of cheap oak veneer and ushered Jonny through.
The smell of sandalwood incense was strong. The room (Actually two rooms; Jonny could see where the sheet rock had been cut away, leaving a ragged white fringe.), was large and mostly empty. It contained an electronic wall map of the metro system, a small lacquered shrine to Shakyamuni, some cheap reproductions of surrealist artwork and a slight, dark-skinned man with the smooth, functional musculature of a dancer.
A blur of gray metal sliced the air above man's head. When he opened his hand, the chain end of a kusairagama flew, curling itself, snake-like, around a bare wall beam. Then, fluid and savage, he started forward, twisting, kicking and feinting, until he ripped the sickle portion of the weapon across the beam at eye level. He stepped back and exhaled once. Then he turned and grinned, acknowledging Jonny and the others for the first time.
'I see our guest has returned from the dead,' he said, unwrapping the chain from the scarred beam. Jonny noticed that the other beams bore similar scars. 'You look good in Croaker banderas, Jonny. Course, you better not let la Migra see you dressed like that.'
'They'll have your ass over the border and chained to some Tijuana work-gang faster than you can say 'green card.''
Tossing the kusairagama aside, he crossed the room with the same liquid grace he had displayed while on the attack. His eyes were small and dark, but quick, missing nothing. He wore his hair slicked back, chollo-style, and had cross-hatched tattoos extending from his shoulders to his wrists, the mark of a particular Iban warrior-priest class. A gold earring, a Caduceus, dangled from his left lobe. As he shook Jonny's hand, he said, 'The name's Groucho, by the way. Please come in.'
The anarchist went to a foam rubber mattress set in a corner of the room, and pulled on a black mesh t-shirt. On a cheap plastic folding table lay a crumbling volume of Rimbaud. Near it was an old fashioned metronome with a photo of an eye clipped to the pendulum. Jonny wondered if it was some kind of joke.
'Do you like our set-up?' asked Groucho. 'I'm sure these two have been keeping you busy. That's good. Boredom and lack of purpose are the chief problems of our age. Don't you agree, Jonny?'
Jonny, who was still trying to figure out the metronome joke, was caught off guard. 'What? Oh yeah, sure. Boredom and getting shot in the head.'
Groucho brought over a couple of canvas chairs, and sat down, smiling in a manner that Jonny found unsettling. The anarchist possessed a certain relaxed grace, an unaffected air, that was riveting. It was impossible to take your eyes off him.
'But violence is the choice we've made, isn't it?' Groucho said.
'We accept the uncertainties, our lives revolve around them. As Croakers, we don't kill because we want to. As a Buddhist, it goes against all my principles. But the act of ridding ourselves of the Committee brings death with it. That's why we run these clinics. It's partly revolution, but, frankly, it's part penance, too. When you take life, you are also obligated to try and save it.' He shrugged. 'And speaking of payback, please accept my thanks, for blowing away that pig, Lieutenant Cawfly. This last bit, Groucho spoke with more venom than the first.'
'Did somebody buy a billboard about that or something?' Jonny asked.
He shook his head. 'I was a lot younger then. I don't even know if I'd do it now. But I can tell you it wasn't for anybody's liberation but my own. Independent thought and action are essential for a good anarchist,' said Groucho.
Jonny slammed his fist onto the table. 'Don't call me that! I'm no anarquista and I wouldn't have come here if I thought I was going to get campaign speeches.'
Jonny looked at Ice hoping for support, but she was reading Rimbaud over Skid's shoulder. 'Abandoning me to the lions,' Jonny thought.
Groucho leaned forward, pointing his finger at Jonny. 'No monkeys are soldiers, all monkeys are mischievous, i.e. Some mischievous creatures are not soldiers,' he said. 'Jonny, you're a dealer- You help to undermine a corrupt system. You subvert it and that is a basic function of a revolutionary.'
The anarchist grinned wider and held up his hands to indicate that he knew he was moving too fast. Lightly, he rose from his chair and went to a battered desk, where he pulled a bottle of red wine from a file drawer. The sight of the liquor made Jonny groan. His thought was that he would like to have the whole thing for himself, to leave these people and their strange art, their talk of politics and death, and get lost in the sweet oblivion of ethanol madness. On the other hand, his stomach turned to acid mush at the mere thought of alcohol. While he tried to sort out which impulse was stronger, his psychic desires or his physical needs, he gazed at the art reproductions above his head.
When Groucho returned, (Ice and Skid, trailing behind) he said: 'Do you like the surrealists? They were a remarkable twentieth century art movement. The first artists to genuinely comprehend the modern age. They applied principles of both psychology and physics to their work, attempting to unite the conscious and unconscious in a single gesture. But more than that, they were the ultimate revolutionaries, questioning everything that was known or knowable.'
To Jonny, the Ernsts and the Dalis could have been snapshots from an only slightly depraved tour book of Los Angeles. The empty architecture that Groucho identified as Chirico's standard made him think of crumbling freeway overpasses and stretches of Hollywood in those few hours after sunset, before the gangs took possession of them for the night. The Tanguy reproductions reminded him of the mural of Los Angeles on the train platform. Someone had copied his style very accurately.
Groucho passed around fluted black champagne glasses, then opening the bottle, poured wine for all. The anarchist raised his glass as in a toast, but he did not drink. Instead, he went back to his chair, his eyes distant.
