Zero History

“What kind of accident?”
“Automobile,” said Milgrim, which was literally true.
“Nothing serious, I hope,” said Bigend, tearing a slice of bread in half.
“She thinks it may have been,” said Milgrim.
“I can keep her on track,” said Bigend, sopping up yolk.
Milgrim looked at Fiona, who was looking at Bigend quite coldly now, he thought, but
then went back to her noodles.
“You want the Gabriel Hounds designer to design for the U.S. military?”
“If a great deal of men’s clothing today is descended from U.S. military designs, and it
is, and the U.S. military is having trouble living up to their heritage, and they are,
someone whose genius lies in some recombinant grasp of the semiotics of mass-produced
American clothing … Foolish not to look at the possibilities. In any case, it’s getting hot
now,” said Bigend.
“What is?”
“The situation. The flow of events. It always does, when people like Sleight decide to
have a go. And the person in my position is expected to focus, narrowly, on the situation
at hand. Terrible waste, tactically. You can often make a killing in the market, while an
attempted coup is under way.” He wiped up yolk and grease with his final bit of bread
and popped it into his mouth, leaving his plate perfectly clean.
Fiona put down her chopsticks, having picked a last shrimp from her noodles. “And
where will I be taking Mr. Milgrim?”
“Holiday Inn, Camden Lock,” said Bigend. “Everyone seems to know about Covent
Garden.”
“I saw one of the Dottirs, in Paris, at the restaurant,” said Milgrim, “and Rausch.”
“I know,” said Bigend. “You told Fiona, last night.”
“But was it an accident that we were there? When they were?”
“It appears to have been,” said Bigend, cheerfully, wiping his fingers with a paper
napkin. “But you know what they say.”
“What?”
“Even the delusionally paranoid have enemies.”
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“He’s put you in the Holiday Inn,” said Fiona as they walked back to the repair yard along
what she’d said, when he’d asked, was lower Marsh Street.
“Yes?”
“Certainly not as posh,” she said, “but where you were has a lot of inherent security,
simply in the ground plan. Stars have ridden out serious press-sieges there. Nothing
wrong with the Camden Holiday Inn, but it’s not that tight.”
“He thinks too many people know where I’ve been staying,” Milgrim said.