Zero History

“That was what you said about Phil Spector.”
“Allowance for age,” said Inchmale, “misfortune. Genius. Lemon?” He proffered a
wedge of cut lemon in an ornate silver squeezer.
“No lemon. What are ‘curly stays’?”
“Corsetry.”
“I just heard a Catalan car thief use the phrase.”
“Did he speak English? Perhaps he was trying to describe a permanent wave.”
“No. Part of a bicycle.”
“My money’s on corsetry. Do you know that Heidi’s stuck a man with a Rhenish dart?”
“Rhenium,” corrected Heidi.
“Rhennish is the hock, yes, and I might well ask for some, shortly. But you,” he said to
Hollis, “you appear to have signed on to a firm in transition.”
“And on whose recommendation?”
“Am I prescient? Have you known me to be prescient?” He tried his tea. Returned his
cup to the saucer. Added a second lump. “Angelina tells me that the London PR
community are behaving like dogs before an earthquake, and somehow everyone knows,
without knowing how, that it’s about Bigend.”
“There’s something going on in Blue Ant,” Hollis said carefully, “but I couldn’t tell you
exactly what. I mean, I don’t know exactly what. But Hubertus doesn’t seem to be taking it
that seriously.”
“Whatever that was in the City last night, he doesn’t take that that seriously?”
“I don’t think that’s the same thing, exactly. But I can’t talk about it.”
“Of course not. That oath you swore, when you joined the agency. The ritual with
Geronimo’s skull. But the tonality Angelina’s picking up isn’t that he’s in trouble, or that
Blue Ant is trouble. It’s that he’s about to become exponentially bigger. PR people know
these things.”
“Bigger?”
“Whole orders of magnitude. Things are shifting, in anticipation. Things are getting
ready to jump on the Bigend boat.”
“Things?”
“The ones that go bump, darling. Like tectonic plates, colliding, in this city of ancient
night.” He sighed. Tried his tea again. Smiled.
“How’s with the Bollards?”
His smile vanished. “I’m thinking of taking them to Tucson.”
“Whew,” said Heidi, “lateral fucking move.”
“I’m entirely serious,” said Inchmale, and sipped his tea.
“We know,” said Hollis. “Have you told them?”
“I’ve told George. He took it remarkably well. The novelty of working with exceptional
intelligence. Clammy, of course, is pissy.”
“Then change his name,” said Heidi, squeezing a lemon wedge above her tea with the