Zero History

something he pointed out to me, in Vancouver.”
“Did you stay with him? In that penthouse?”
Milgrim nodded.
“In the room with the maglev bed?”
“No,” Milgrim said, “I had a small room. I needed … focus.” He finished the last of his
croissant, took a sip of coffee. “I was, I think the word is ‘institutionalized’? I wasn’t
comfortable with too much space. Too many options. Then he sent me to Basel.”
“Switzerland?”
“To begin my recovery. If you don’t mind me asking, why are you working for him
now?”
“I ask myself that,” she said. “It’s not the first time, and after the first time, I certainly
didn’t want there to be a second time. But it proved weirdly lucrative, that first time, in a
very roundabout way, a way that had nothing to do with what I was supposedly doing for
him. Then I lost a lot of that money in the crash, hadn’t found anything else I wanted to
do, and suddenly he was insisting I do this. I’m not entirely comfortable with it.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“I can tell,” said Milgrim.
“Why are you working for him?”
“I need a job,” said Milgrim. “And because … he paid for the clinic, in Basel. My
recovery.”
“He sent you to detox?”
“It was very expensive,” he said. “More than an armored truck. Cartel grade.” He
straightened his knife and fork on the white plate, amid crumbs. “It’s confusing,” he said.
“Now he wants me to work with you.” He looked up from the plate, both elements of his
oddly fragmented self seeming for the first time to see her simultaneously. “Why don’t
you sing?”
“Because I don’t sing,” she said.
“But you were famous. You must have been. There was a poster.”
“That’s not really what it’s about,” she said.
“It just seems it might be easier. For you, I mean.”
“It wouldn’t,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he said.