She is waiting for him, always, in the white house up the canyon road. The candles. The wine. The jet-beaded dress against the matte perfection of her skin, such whiteness, the black beads drawn smooth and cool as a snakes belly up her tensed thigh.
Far away, beneath cotton sheets, his hands move.
Later, drifting toward sleep of a different texture, the phone beneath his pillow chimes softly and only once.
Yes?
Confirming your reservation to San Francisco someone says, either a woman or a machine. He touches a key, recording the flight number, says goodnight, and closes his eyes on the tenuous light sifting from the dark borders of the drapes.
Her white arms enfold him. Her blondness eternal.
He sleeps.
IntenSecure had their wagons detailed every three shifts. They used this big specialty car wash off Colby; twenty coats of hand-rubbed Wet Honey Sienna and you didnt let it get too shabby.
That one November evening the Republic of Desire put an end to his career in armed response, Berry Rydell had arrived there a little early.
He liked the way it smelled inside. They had this pink stuff they put through the power-washers to get the road film off, and the smell reminded him of a summer job hed had in Knoxville, his last year in school. Theyd been putting condos into the shell of this big old Safeway out on Jefferson Davis. The architects wanted the cinder block walls stripped just this one certain way, mostly gray showing through but some old pink Safeway paint left in the little dips and crannies. They were from Memphis and they wore black suits and white cotton shirts. The shirts had obviously cost more than the suits, or at least as much, and they never wore ties or undid the top button. Rydell had figured that that was a way for architects to dress; now he lived in L.A., he knew it was true. Hed overheard one of them explaining to the foreman that what they were doing was exposing the integrity of the materials passage through time. He thought that was probably bullshit, but he sort of liked the sound of it anyway; like what happened to old people on television.
But what it really amounted to was getting most of this shitty old paint off thousands and thousands of square feet of equally shitty cinder block, and you did it with an oscillating spray-head on the end of a long stainless handle. If you thought the foreman wasnt looking, you could aim it at another kid, twist out a thirty-foot rooster tail of stinging rainbow, and wash all his sunblock off. Rydell and his friends all wore this Australian stuff that came in serious colors, so you could see where you had and hadnt put it. Had to get your right distance on it, though, cause up close those heads could take the chrome off a bumper. Rydell and Buddy Crigger both got fired for doing that, finally, and then they walked across Jeff Davis to a beer joint and Rydell wound up spending the night with this girl from Key West, the first time hed ever slept beside a woman.
2. Cruising with gunhead
Rydell didnt know about that, but that paint job was definitely trying too hard. He thought they probably wanted people to
think of those big brown United Parcel trucks, and at the same time they maybe hoped it would look sort of like something youd see in an Episcopal church. Not too much gilt on the logo. Sort of restrained.
The people who worked in the car wash were mostly Mongolian immigrants, recent ones who had trouble getting better jobs. They did this crazy throat-singing thing while they worked, and he liked to hear that. He couldnt figure out how they did it; sounded like tree-frogs, but like it was two sounds at once.
Now they were buffing the rows of chromed nubs down the sides. Those had been meant to support electric crowd-control grids and were just chromed for looks. The riot-wagons in Knoxville had been electrified, but with this drip-system that kept them wet, which was a lot nastier.
Sign here said the crew boss, this quiet black kid named Anderson. He was a medical student, days, and he always looked like he was about two nights short of sleep.
Rydell took the pad and the light-pen and signed the signature-plate. Anderson handed Rydell the keys.
You ought to get you some rest Rydell said. Anderson grinned, wanly. Rydell walked over to Gunhead, deactivating the door alarm.
Somebody had written that inside, GUNHEAD in green marker on the panel above the windshield. The name stuck, but mostly because Sublett liked it. Sublett was Texan, a refugee from some weird trailer-camp video-sect. He said his mother had been getting ready to deed his ass to the church, whatever that meant.
Sublett wasnt too anxious to talk about it, but Rydell had gotten the idea that these people figured video was the Lords preferred means of communicating, the screen itself a kind of perpetually burning bush. Hes in the de-tails Sublett had said once. You gotta watch for Him close. Whatever form this worship had taken, it was evident that Sublett had absorbed more television than anyone Rydell had ever met, mostly old movies on channels that never ran anything but. Sublett said Gunhead was the name of a robot tank in a Japanese monster movie. Hernandez thought Sublett had written the name on there himself. Sublett denied it. Hernandez said take it off. Sublett ignored him. It was still there, but Rydell knew Sublett was too law-abiding to commit any vandalism, and anyway the ink in the marker mightve killed him.