Zero History

“It is,” said Bigend.
“Whose phone was that?”
“Do you remember that there was something else in that purse? A black plastic unit,
roughly twice the size of the phone?”
Milgrim did now. He nodded.
“That was a scrambler. It belonged to me. The person whose purse you found was an
employee of mine. I wanted to know who had her phone. That was why I tried the
number.”
“Why did you keep phoning back?”
“Because I became curious about you. And because you kept answering. Because we
began to have a conversation that led eventually to our meeting, and, as you say, to your
being here today.”
“Did it cost more to have me here today than …” Milgrim thought about it. “More than
the Toyota Hilux?” He felt as though his therapist were watching him.
Bigend’s head tilted slightly. “I’m not certain, but it probably did. Why?”
“That’s my question,” said Milgrim. “Why?”
“Because I knew about the clinic in Basel. It’s highly controversial, very expensive. I
was curious as to whether or not it would work, with you.”
“Why?” asked Milgrim.
“Because,” Bigend said, “I’m a curious person, and can afford to satisfy my curiosity.
The doctors who examined you in Vancouver were not optimistic, to put it mildly. I like a
challenge. And even in the condition I found you in, in Vancouver, you were an
exceptional translator. Later”—and Bigend smiled—“it became evident that you have an
interesting eye for a number of things.”
“I’d be dead now, wouldn’t I?”
“My understanding is that you probably would be, if you’d been withdrawn from the
drug too quickly,” Bigend said.
“Then what do I owe you?”
Bigend reached for the shotgun, as though he were about to tap it with his finger, then
caught himself. “Not your life,” he said. “That’s a by-product. Of my curiosity.”
“All that money?”
“The cost of my curiosity.”
Milgrim’s eyes stung.
“This is not a situation in which you’re required to thank me,” Bigend said. “I hope you
understand that.”
Milgrim swallowed. “Yes,” he said.
“I do want you to work with Hollis on this other project,” Bigend said. “Then we’ll
see.”
“See what?”
“What we see,” said Bigend, reaching across the shotgun for the gray folder. “Go back