Zero History

17. HOMUNCULI
She found Heidi in Cabinet’s bar, monochromatically resplendent in a sort of postholocaust
drum majorette jacket, cut from several different shades and textures of almostblack.
“Fuckstick’s cards worked?”
“Two did,” said Heidi, raising a steaming glass of clear liquid in a highball glass. Her
fresh-cut hair had been reblackened, likewise in several shades, and she seemed to have
hit the makeup counter as well.
“What’s that?” Hollis asked, indicating the glass.
“Water,” Heidi said, and sipped.
“Want to go to Paris with me, tomorrow morning?”
“What for?”
“My day job. There’s a vintage clothing fair. I may have found someone who knows
what Bigend wants me to find out. Part of it, anyway.”
“How did you find them?”
“I think she’s dating the keyboard player from the Bollards.”
“Small world,” said Heidi. “And he’s the only cute one. Rest are homunculuses.”
“Homunculi.”
“Little douche bags,” Heidi countercorrected. “I’ll pass. Throat’s bothering me. Fucking
planes.”
“No, Eurostar.”
“I mean the one I came over on. When are you back?”
“Day after tomorrow, if I can find her tomorrow. I guess I’ll take Milgrim, then.”
“How was he?”
“Profoundly. Fucking. Peculiar.” Hollis blew gently on the thin tan island of foam
afloat in her half pint of Guinness, to see it move, then drank some. Always a mysterious
beverage to her. Unsure why she’d asked for it. She liked the way it looked more than
how it tasted. How would it taste, she wondered, if it tasted the way she thought it
looked? No idea. “Though maybe not in such a bad way. Not his fault Bigend found him.
We know how that is.”
“Robert’s found me a gym. Old school. East side.”
“End. Not side.”
“He’s cute.”
“Don’t you dare. ‘No civilians,’ remember? If you’d stuck with the rule, you wouldn’t
have to be divorcing fuckstick.”
“Look at you. Motherfucker’s on YouTube, jumping off skyscrapers in a flying-squirrel
suit.”