Glimmering

It was late afternoon. Sandbagged sidewalks were jammed with pedestrians and cyclists crowding subway entrances and storefronts to keep out of the rain. In the bright aperture between skyscrapers Trip saw a writhing shape like an amoeba, one of the city’s solex shields come loose. He glimpsed the brass-colored capsule of one of GFI’s famous fleet of advertising dirigibles, fresh from its factory in Northern Japan, moving slowly across the sky.

NEW ZEALAND/MALAYSIAN PEACE TALKS!

LOVETT-FORBES WEDDING!

As the car crawled uptown, the sidewalks became thickets of metal trusses, where new protective shields were being installed in corporate buildings, the reflective sheets of solex rippling in the wind as workers struggled to hold them. Trip cracked his window and smelled steam and roasting garlic and exhaust. Between restaurant awnings well-dressed men and women scurried like ants. Some wore sunglasses, despite the rain, or wide-brimmed hats. Many more had the blank silvery gaze that came from plasmer implants. They walked with exaggerated caution, as though drunk. When the hired car stopped at a light, Trip stared at one woman who sat astride a black horse extravagantly caparisoned with metal spikes. The woman’s elegantly masked face tilted upward, so that the rain streamed down her cheeks and pooled on the collar of her black rubber shawl. Her eyes, like her mount’s, were silvery gray. In the minutes that Trip watched them, neither woman nor horse once blinked.

After nearly an hour they reached the GFI complex. Trip and the blond girl said not a word, though once or twice Trip responded briefly to a question from the driver. The rain had stopped by the time the car pulled beneath the huge solex awning that fanned out across Fifty-third Street. Ribbons of pink and orange streaming across the sky made Trip look up, past the solex shield. The girl shrugged on her raincoat and looked at him.

“Thanks,” she said. The driver held the door open, but Marz remained inside, her expression so remote she might not have seen him there at all. Trip waited for her to say good-bye, wanting desperately for her to be gone. He himself could say nothing, could only stare miserably at his hands. When after a minute he looked up he saw a glister of pink vinyl disappearing through the Pyramid’s revolving doors.

The ride back to Stamford took several hours. Trip stretched across the backseat and slept, awakening as they hydroplaned onto the Hutch. Flooded fields and golf courses reflected the early-twilight sky, calm pools of gold and violet with dying trees rising from them like scaffolds. They passed onto the Merritt Parkway and the alluvial plain that had been Connecticut’s gold coast, its abandoned shorefront condos and mansions given over to the rising Atlantic. In the gold-slashed dusk Trip could see lights flickering from the upper stories of some of the houses, and on dilapidated barges and houseboats. He opened his window; the car filled with the low-tide reek of fish rotting on the strand, the faint and sweetly ominous sound of drums and singing children.

It was after six when he got back to the hotel. John Drinkwater collared him in the hall, already dressed in the stylish hempen suit he insisted on wearing when Trip performed.

“Where have you been? ”

Trip pushed past him and into his room. “I need to take a shower.”

“You don’t have time! We have to go now, Jerry needs a sound check on—”

Trip shook his head. Without a backward glance he started for the bathroom, peeling off his shirt as he went. “He can go, then. You too. Get me another car—”

John grabbed Trip’s arm, his voice rising. “Hey! You were supposed to be here two hours ago! You listen to me, Trip—”

“No.” Trip whirled, yanking his arm back so hard that John staggered away from him. “I’m taking a shower, okay? Okay?”

He shouted the last word and stormed into the bathroom. John Drinkwater blinked before recovering himself.

“Eight o’clock, Trip!” he yelled as the door slammed shut. “You go on at eight o—”

“I’ll go on when I’m fucking ready.” Trip’s voice echoed through the suite, followed by the roar of water.

John stared at the bathroom door. Then he walked to the phone and called the concierge.

“I’ll need an additional limousine for Mr. Marlowe. Tell the others to go on now, and we’ll meet them.”

He hung up and started for the door, stopped when he saw Trip’s shirt crumpled on the sisal rug. For a moment he stared at it, then stooped and picked it up. Tentatively he brought it to his face and inhaled, breathing in the stale odors of lilacs and sweat, and a fainter, muskier scent.

“Hah.” John Drinkwater stared at the shirt, then flung it back onto the floor. Women, he thought balefully and stalked from the room.

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