Zero History

cushioned.
“Archaic expression,” said Bigend. “Faggots, properly speaking, being pieces of
firewood. When one had a faggot above a load, one was about to drop one. It meant that
something was excessive, too busy.”
“Foley,” said Milgrim. “In the car in front of us.”
“I gathered as much.”
“Where’s Aldous?”
“Being questioned by various species of police. He’s good at that.”
“Will he be arrested?”
“Unlikely. But when Fiona debriefed you, in Paris, you told her that you’d gone to
Galeries Lafayette. That Foley had followed you there, as you’d guessed he would, and
that you’d slipped the Neo, having determined that Sleight was using it to allow Foley to
track you, into, I believe she said, a pram.”
“Not a pram,” said Milgrim, “exactly. More modern.”
“Was there a reason for choosing that one particular pram?”
“The woman, the mother, was Russian. I’d been eavesdropping.”
“What sort of a woman did you take her to be?”
“The wife of an oligarch, would-be oligarch …”
“Or gangster?”
Milgrim nodded.
“Accompanied by at least one bodyguard, I would imagine?”
Milgrim nodded.
Bigend stared at him. “Naughty.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It isn’t as though I don’t want you to become more proactive,” said Bigend, “but now
that I understand what you did, I see that you’ve been irresponsible. Impulsive.”
“You’re impulsive,” said Milgrim, surprising himself.
“I’m supposed to be impulsive. You’re supposed to be relatively circumspect.” He
frowned. “Or, rather, not that you’re supposed to be, particularly, but that I expect it of
you, on the basis of experience. Why did you do it?”
“I was tired of Sleight. I’ve never liked him very much.”
“One doesn’t,” agreed Bigend.
“And I’d never really thought about the idea of his being able to track me with the Neo
before. I’d taken that for granted, assumed it was something you wanted him to do, but
then you were expressing distrust for him, suspicion …” Milgrim shrugged. “I felt
impatient, angry.”
Bigend studied him, the weird cathode blue of his suit seeming to float in Milgrim’s
retina at some special depth. “I think I understand,” he said. “You’re changing. They told
me to expect that. I’ll factor it in, in future.” He took an iPhone from an inner pocket and
squinted at its screen, replaced it. “The woman in Seven Dials. The federal agent. I need