patties that were glued together with a mortar of yellow grease. He peeled one off and ate it noisily as he spoke.
'Did you bring the fifty?' His lips smacked with a waxy sound and his yellow teeth champed like a horse's.
'Of course I brought the fifty,' I snarled and took a seat in the crumbs on the side table.
Willieboy pulled up a chair that had been obscured behind curtains. I noticed an angry red welt on his neck and back.
'If you didn't know the dead guys who set the fire, then how did they know where I was?'
'What dead guys?' His forehead wrinkled.
I told him.
He made a fist of his face and shook his head. 'I'm tellin' you, Wildclown, it must'a been a set up 'cause after I left you, I found six dead punkers waitin' for me downstairs. Jesus, I was mixin' it up good with them when the fire started!' He gestured to the injury on his back.
I pulled my gun. I didn't point it at him-just fiddled with it, sighting along its length and hefting it like it was new.
'Not the best excuse I've ever heard, Mr. Willieboy.' I continued to play.
He froze, mouth full of hamburger, and then began nodding his head and sputtering. 'There-there! Give a guy a goddamned gun and he gets tough every time. But I'll show you, you bastard, nobody fucks with Douglas Willieboy.'
'Unless he has a gun, right.' I grinned.
'That's right,' he laughed. 'You're okay, Wildclown-did you bring the money? I'm tired of eatin' like a blowfly!'
'I've got the money, but it'll take a good story to squeeze it out of me. I fell twelve stories last night-and I'm a little cranky.' I leaned back against the cracker box and wall.
Willieboy started talking. He punctuated each sentence with squishy hamburger noises.
'All right, I knew her better than I said-the Van Reydner broad. I mean I knew her in that way, you know. Shit, who wouldn't-she was gorgeous. So, I was a little bit involved with her, which I said I wasn't. It wasn't true love or nothin', but it was fun. Not every night, but sometimes she'd phone down for room service…' He leaned back and laughed. 'That's what she called it. Well fuck, who wouldn't go along?'
I couldn't think of who wouldn't and I said as much.
'So that went on for about a month, until she left.' He smiled a great idiot grin.
'Congratulations, Willieboy,' I grumbled. 'But that's not worth squat to me. I hope you enjoy your memories.' I stood up to leave.
'That's not all,' he said this very shrilly for a man his size. 'I knew she was going away. I was there when she packed her bag.'
'Go on,' I lit a cigarette, offered Willieboy one and took my seat in the crumbs.
'It was about six days ago-Tuesday night. She said she'd be leaving soon, but she wouldn't be away long. Asked me if I'd be sweet enough to let her go without a hassle. She owed money. See, I was kinda suckered, but fuck, what the hell. It wasn't my hotel.'
'Do you know where she went?' I drew in on my smoke-there was no protest from the hotdogs. I felt like belching anyway.
'No, she just went. Course, the night she split-Thursday, no Friday morning-I didn't know that lawyer had been shot up there. He came down when I was going off my shift at six. She had already left, around 3 a.m.-nailed me in the back room for being a good boy!' he cackled knowingly.
'Did Authority question you?'
'Funny that, a little shit from Authority came in before I even got a chance to call. I just figured someone else in the building got a'hold of them.'
'What was his name?' I leaned forward.
'I don't know, shit-I'm not a secretary!' he frowned.
'Did you tell him what you told me?' I started glaring.
'Hell no, they'd have framed me like a Vangoff. I'd be eatin' rats in their cellar right now.' Willieboy wiped a hand across his mouth.
'Okay,' I said. 'You haven't told me much worth $50, give me some more, or I'll leave you to your filet mignon.'
'All right, don't get your shorts stretched out of shape. See, she got a few calls from this guy, Simon-he never gave a last name. I'd work the switchboard you know, and he'd call up from time to time. Always late. Shit, I always figured she was full of it on the massage crap 'cause I only saw her with the one client. What did I care, right? That lawyer he had lots of folding money, understand? He can look after himself.
'I listened in from time to time, when they'd talk, her and that Simon guy. I ain't proud of that but it's a boring late night shift anyway. His voice was always kind'a scared like he knew I was listening. Well, they'd talk and I've never heard more boring talk. He'd only mention the weather. He'd say that the clouds were going to break soon. He wondered if she were ready for some sun. I kept wanting to break in and scream that they're both boring and could they talk about some sex or something.' Willieboy sat back, his face a mask of introspection before continuing. 'The only time it was interesting was the night the lawyer got whacked. This Simon guy calls her and says it's time for a change in the weather. She said she was getting really tired of the clouds and would be glad for a change and tonight would be good. Boring shit, still maybe, but at least it was something different. He sounded like a real pin-head.' Willieboy smiled as though he'd just opened a treasure chest.
'Great Willieboy, he was a pin-head, big deal. I could have guessed that. It sure as hell isn't worth fifty bucks. A name, Simon, talked to her. Wonderful.'
He kept grinning like a fool. Finally, he leaned forward and pulled a stained envelope from his back pocket.
'I wonder what his phone number and a picture of Van Reydner would be worth?' He waggled the folded envelope between his fingers.
I began digging for Tommy's annoying plastic mouth purse.
Chapter 11
I could tell from the first ring that I had a bad connection. The phone line rattled and clicked like a drunk unlocking a door. Decay. I was just glad the lights were on. Blackouts would soon become a daily occurrence, like the rain. This was another fringe benefit of the Change. Just after the rains started but before the dead rose up, telecommunications the world over went on the fritz. Some of it made sense, too. Cell phones and other satellite dependent technologies like the Internet and television were immediately impaired. The continuous ceiling of cloud could be blamed at least in part for interference. But the Change went beyond that. It was as if the complex system of communications satellites had simply ceased to exist. Signals could not reach them and no explanation was forthcoming. Scientists wanted to blame the residual effects of the Millennium bug, but that concept was too laughable to bear. Instead, the shuttlecraft Declaration was prepared for launch to investigate the anomaly. It blew up on the ground killing everyone aboard.
Computer scientists had warned NASA about that, since it was no secret that computers and networked systems had also begun to behave erratically if they worked at all. But NASA went ahead, boasting a breakthrough in computer system shielding technology-one of the theories at the time was that electrical systems were being compromised by enormous bursts of electromagnetic radiation from increased sunspot activity. NASA ignored reports that information stored digitally was growing more difficult to retrieve and a program stored might not open completely, if it opened at all. The crash investigators later blamed the computer responsible for firing the solid rocket boosters. Its program designed to control this process fired only one of them, which ripped open and ignited the main fuel tank. Similar computer-related accidents the world over soon gave credence to the theory. Information saved on computers was being garbled and made irretrievable by causes unknown.
And there followed an all-encompassing devolution of sorts. Computers were too undependable so they were
