Zero History

51. SOMEONE
Hollis lay fully dressed on the embroidered velvet spread of the Piblokto Madness bed,
watching the faint oscillation of huge curved shadows thrown by the halogens in the
birdcage library, dialed down until they were almost off. In some sense, she decided, she
literally no longer knew where she was. In Number Four, in Cabinet, certainly, but if
she’d just been one of the subjects of an abduction attempt, as Fiona seemed to believe
she had, was Number Four still the same place? A matter of context. The same place, but
meaning differently.
Fiona had insisted on bringing her up here, and then had looked in the bathroom, and
in the wardrobe, where in any case there was no room to hide. If the wooden sides of the
bed hadn’t gone straight down to the carpet, Hollis guessed, Fiona would have looked
under it as well. Put the chain on, Fiona had ordered, leaving to find Milgrim and Heidi,
something she seemed relatively certain of being able to do. As far as she knew, Fiona
had said, both were okay. She’d had no more idea about what the attempted trucktrapping
had been about than Hollis did, it seemed, though she too had identified
Milgrim’s Foley, their shadow from Salon du Vintage. What had Bigend called him? A
fantasist? How would he have expected to get inside Aldous’s super-truck? The thing was
capable of being sealed hermetically, she knew, because Aldous delighted in explaining
its many features. It carried tanks of compressed air, and could be driven through clouds
of tear or any other gas. He’d also told her that it could drive underwater, with a snorkel
extended. A bank vault on wheels, its “glass” some hush-hush Israeli nano stuff that
Aldous was particularly proud of Bigend’s having been able to source. Was it possible
that Foley had simply had no idea what the silver pickup was about? It looked, after all, at
least to Hollis, like any other truck, of that stretched, four-door, overly masculine sort, its
bed shortened by half through the extension of the cab. The bed was covered with a
ribbed lid, painted to match the bodywork. Perhaps that was where they kept the air
supply. And what had happened to Foley since she’d seen him in Paris? An accident? A
head injury?
There was a knock at the door. Two raps, brisk, quite sharp. “Miss Henry?” A man’s
voice. “It’s Robert, Miss Henry.”
It did in fact sound like Robert. She sat up, stood up, crossed to the door. “Yes?”
“Someone to see you, Miss Henry.”
This was such a singular thing for a hotel security man to say, and delivered with such
an uncharacteristic cheerfulness, that she stepped back, quickly scanned the nearest shelf,
and seized the same spikey ebony head that Heidi had so tidily bull’s-eyed earlier that day.
Inverted, it felt comfortingly heavy, its serrated hairdo adding teeth to blunt-instrument
potential.