When she picks up Maya says, “I hope you feel like making money tonight, because Herr Cromwell wants to see you.”
“Does he.”
“Hey, are you all right? You sound like your puppy died.”
“No. Yes. I’m fine,” she says, unable to bring her voice to life.
“Why don’t you tell Auntie Maya what’s wrong.”
“The afternoon has gotten strange.” She wonders if the line is secure, then wonders about the physics of parabolic microphones, if they work through glass. “It’s probably nothing.”
“What kind of nothing? Whatever it is, I can probably help. The agency has lawyers, coders, contractors, what have you. I think there’s even a masseur now.”
“In this context, contractor means mercenary, right? Like a hired soldier?”
“Shit, really? You in bad trouble, hon?” Her voice is almost squeaky, like a pubescent boy’s. “Do you need some help right away?”
“I might.” She feels like crying but she’d lose her self-respect.
“In Northern California we usually work with Parthenon Associates. They’re mostly British ex–special forces,” Maya says, and Irina is aware that she’s trying not to show how much she wants to ask exactly what the trouble is. “They’re very good. Pulled any number of client asses out of fires, and they’re extremely discreet. Would that help?”
“Yes.”
Sound of typing as Maya says, “Soooo … You now have an account with Parthenon, and as of two seconds ago they’ve dispatched a contractor to your current location. Any charges go on your tab with us but as of now you’re officially their client, so their obligation is to you, and the agency is out of the loop. I just pushed their contact info to your phone. I might add that they have strong ties of reciprocity, as they say, with the state and city powers-that-be, so they’re in a position to clean up their own messes, or for that matter most any mess at all.”
“Thanks,” Irina says, feeling a little better, though part of her questions the wisdom of bringing in shooters when it’s not at all yet clear who, if anyone, needs to be shot.
“So anyway. The reason I called. Cromwell wants to have dinner with you tonight at this restaurant, Maison Dernière. Apparently he has an offer for you and wants to make it in person. And since it’s short notice and you’ll actually be doing something for Water and Power, even if it’s just eating breadsticks and listening to him talk about his many achievements, they’re offering quadruple time.”
The hourly seems high, almost desperately so, but she’s not going to blow off one of her few friends of long standing, so she says, “I have plans tonight.”
“Philip, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell him I said I love him to death but if he wants his company to grow he has to stop being such a little priss about using me and my people, and accept the reality of TMP’s market power. Actually, maybe you could phrase that in a nicer way? And tell him I said I love his tie, because I think he wears them now. Anyhow: Cromwell’s people thought you might be busy, but they say it’s urgent, and that he really wants to talk tonight, so he’s available when you are, and after dinner is fine. I kind of suspect he doesn’t sleep much—hell, I don’t sleep much and I’m less than half his age. I know you must be tired, and there’s whatever else is going on, but money-money-money, you know? So are you down?”
“Sure,” says Irina, though the night seems far away.
“Great. And are you absolutely sure you don’t want to tell me what’s up?”
“I’m fine,” she lies, sounding annoyed.
“Okay. Well, great, then. Call me if something comes up. Bye, sweetie. Good luck. You’ve got my number.”
At the table beside her is a boy with a bowl haircut, ethnically Korean, wearing a glossy black sweatsuit, rapt in his laptop, and surreptitiously looking over his shoulder she sees he’s playing a first-person shooter, though no guns or adversaries are in evidence, and he seems only to be wandering through a dark mansion, going up and down stairs and stopping before locked doors and passing in and out of shadows, and she wonders what the point is, if whatever nameless evil implied by the endless eerie corridors will reveal itself in the end or if finally the game is about boredom and dread and long, fruitless searching.
She stopped playing video games years ago—they’re too easy a way to annul her emotions, and there’s no getting away from computers—but now she envies his absorption.
A tall rangy boy in a black hoodie comes into the cafe, head down and hands in pockets. He doesn’t look posh enough for the neighborhood, but maybe he has a job here, and she’s wondering what’s keeping Parthenon when the boy stops in front of her, and her momentary terror dissolves when he lifts his eyes and she sees that he’s a man—she’d been fooled by the clothes and the body language—blue-eyed, windburned, smiling down at her.
“Parthenon?” she asks, and feels foolish.
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, his voice Scottish, sounding at the same time like he’s making a joke and reporting for duty.
“Good. So. Thanks for coming out. I won’t need you to come very far with me today.”
Out on the street on the way to the Doric he seems not to mind the rain and she isn’t sure if they’re supposed to make conversation. You know you’re truly rich, she thinks, if you’re used to dealing with private soldiers.
Finally she says, “So is one of you enough to deal with … whatever arises?”
“Probably,” he says. “I’m wearing armor, so I’m more durable than I look, and in addition to my sidearm I’ve got a collapsible long gun under the hoodie, which is more firepower than nonmilitary personnel are really supposed to have. And if I fire a shot, or shots are fired near me, then reinforcements come at a run—armed drones arrive in under one minute, and a squad in five, and if at that point there’s still a problem, then, well, the escalation is ridiculous, but Parthenon isn’t in the business of losing fights.” He’s both grave and cheerful, and she wonders how he manages such sangfroid in the face of the violence of his profession.
“You don’t present as I expected.”
“Well, I could dress like a proper bodyguard, but that would just tell the world you’re someone worth robbing. Better if I look like no one in particular. They send us to classes to learn how to do that—the costume helps, but, if you’ll forgive my boasting, I can look like a nobody even in an excellent suit.” He sighs. “You sign up to be a soldier and end up doing amateur theatricals. It’s the story of my life.”
Silence, for a while, as he slouches along beside her, for all the world like a sullen teenager, until, peering down at her from under his hood, he says, “I don’t mean to pry, but the précis was light on detail. May I ask if we’re expecting some particular kind of trouble?”