Zero History

grotto beneath the Salon du Vintage, simultaneously looking the worse for wear and
somehow like a scarily adult version of that Diane Arbus photograph of the emotionally
disturbed boy, the one with the grenade. Bandaged, as from a head injury.
They had startlingly slick toilet paper here. In a club, she’d have assumed it was
deliberately retro.
Upstairs, on the small concrete island that she guessed might be a tiny public square,
though it wasn’t square, the girl called Fiona stood near her motorcycle, pinching at pixels
on her iPhone’s screen. The half-dozen other bikes parked there were all equally large
and rough-looking. A pair of couriers stood on the tarmac, smoking, past the end of the
row of bikes, like knights in smudged primary colors, serrated plates of carbon fiber
giving their backs a Jurassic look. Shapeless hair and beards, like extras in a Robin Hood
movie. Beyond them, she recognized the mock Tudor façade of Liberty. Great
Marlborough Street. Not so far from Portman Square. It felt like days since she’d left
there.
“Ready,” said Fiona, behind her.
She turned as Fiona was slipping her phone into a pocket on the front of her black
coat. “Where are Heidi and Milgrim?”
“My next job,” Fiona said, “after I run you to your hotel.”
“You know where they are?”
“We can find them,” Fiona said, throwing her leg over her bike. She wore knee-high
black boots, side-buckled from top to bottom, their toes abraded to a pale gray. She held
out the helmet.
“It’s giving me a headache,” she said.
“Sorry,” said Fiona, “it’s Mrs. Benny’s. Borrowed it.”
Hollis put it on and climbed on behind her, without waiting for further explanation.