‘—
When she and Tarr were dressed, Flat Nose came back with a genuine bill. ‘And we didn’t charge nothing for towing your car, Brother Tarr. Because you’re a good sport.’
Tarr grinned and opened his chequebook. Indica said, ‘You boys like gags, do you?’
Flat Nose grinned. ‘We pull some perdy good ones around here, like last year we made up a guy and we enrolled him in a lotta classes, whole buncha stuff. We even took exams for him, he got a B average, perdy good, huh?’ His laughter sounded like a child’s imitation of a machinegun, as he left with his cheque.
‘Jesus,’ said Indica. ‘Nothing changes around the U, I’ve been away from it years now, same asshole kids still here pulling the same asshole stunts, hanging toilet seats on the Student Union tower — why don’t we get out of here?’
He looked at the TV. ‘Guess I missed the weather—’
Within minutes they had exchanged the dazzle of orange faces for the dazzle of sun on snow, the boom of TV for the roar of radio.
‘I called the office,’ said Tarr. ‘But Judi my sec isn’t in yet. So I can drop you anywhere, plenty of time.’ The car sped through outlying fragments of the campus, past book-stores and sweatshirt boutiques, past the new Life Sciences building with its imposing sculpture of a clam. ‘I’ll have to chew her ass out good, though, being this late.’
‘But Jack, wasn’t she at the party last night? Maybe the poor girl just overslept.’
‘So? Of course I still expect her to turn up on time, and normally she’s very conscientious too, that’s why this leaves me in a bind, I wanted to finish mapping out this Middle East campaign with her before we run into Christmas.’
‘Market forecasting, isn’t that kind of crystal ball stuff?’ she asked. The car was leaving University environs and entering a neighbourhood of cheap bars, pawnshops, fast food and barricaded liquor stores.
‘Crystal ball, hmm, you could say that. In fact, we use psychic data right along with more conventional info, you’d be surprised how well they correlate. Not long ago we had an account, a well-known company who wanted to open up a chain of taco stands in the University area. Or was it pizza-burgers? Anyway, what they wanted was an optimal set of locations. So we took a map of the campus, held a pendulum over it, and just assessed the strength of the swing.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘Nope. There were four strong-swing areas — and these turned out to be the four ideal locations! You could call that good guesswork — but was it?’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ she said, amused. ‘To me, psychic stuff is just all in the mind.’
‘Yes yes, of course, nothing wrong with healthy scepticism and I myself — LOOK OUT! DAMN YOU!’ He hit the brakes as a ragged figure in a torn storm-coat danced across the street in front of them. The car slid on glare ice a few feet, hit the man gently and had no apparent effect; for he too slid, flailing his arms until he could regain his dancing pace and make it to the kerb. There he removed a glove and gave them the finger.
‘Damn these derelicts, every Christmas they swarm down here, makes you wish the city would just bring in exterminators, put out I don’t know maybe bottles of poison wine in paper bags—’
‘But Jack, look! Look, isn’t that Allbright, he was at the party.’
‘And here he is in his own environ — what are you doing?’
Before the car could move again she had the window down and was waving. ‘Allbright! Hey! You need a ride anywhere?’
The gaunt figure paused, Z-bent to peer at them, then danced over. ‘And a Merry Christmas to you, good lady, and to your good gentleman, God bless you for your true Christian spirit as you feed the hungry, clothe the naked, ride the pedestrian ‘
‘Just get in the car and shut up,’ Tarr said. ‘Allbright the damn light’s changing.’
Allbright squeezed in beside Indica, letting his arm hang out the open window. ‘Where we going, kids?’
‘Just shut up.’
‘Maybe if you tell us where you want to be dropped…’ Indica suggested.
‘Oh, a place over on Jogues Boulevard, place called Larry’s Grill. Jogues Boulevard, ever notice how the Jesuits had their way with this town? Xavier Avenue, Loyola Street and so on, makes you wonder—’
‘You look terrible,’ said Indica. ‘Dirt in your beard, dried it looks like blood down the side of your face—’
‘Makes you wonder about Larry’s Grill itself, eh?’
‘And your clothes. Allbright you look—’
‘Terrible, I know. That’s why you snubbed me last night, eh?’
Indica opened her mouth to frame a denial, but already Allbright had changed the subject again. ‘Moxon’s got a damn good library, you know?’
‘And you’ve been ripping him off?’
‘Only a few books, just to get me what I need… I even found something there published by his namesake. Nineteenth-century publisher called Moxon too, published Keats.’
‘No kidding.’ She stifled a yawn.
‘Part of a series, Moxon’s Miniature Poets, nice image there, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley… Ought to be right in your line, Indica.’
‘Poetry? No, I—’
‘First time I heard you were liberating the machines I thought of that old stock cartoon, you know: man on a street corner winding up lots of little men and setting them free to walk away — million gags based on that image, wouldn’t you say?’
Indica sat up a little. ‘My work is no gag, buster.’
‘Course not, no, just thinking of Moxon, Moxon’s Miniature Poets, little windup Keats, windup Coleridge. Little windup Shelley faints, fails, falls upon the tiny thorns of life, bleeds… fine early example of miniaturization there…’
She looked at him. ‘You’re kind of a fine early example yourself. Of verbal masturbation.’
‘Yes. Yes, somebody’s got to wind somebody up, now and then. Even if there’s no love, tiny Wordsworth can still talk of little nameless unremembered acts of kindness, if not of love… What do we all have? What, detergents being kind to hands? Love with a vibrator? Poetry from a damn computer?’
Tarr made a face. ‘What are you on, Allbright? Why don’t you just shut up, we’ll drop you at your bar and you can ramble on with all the other—’
‘Forgetting my manners, haven’t congratulated Indica on her new book. What did
