“I’m a fucking cop out there. Somewhere.”
Mestre Ginga clammed shut his phone. Dew ran down the sides of the cans. “In a sense, yes. The term we use is an admonitory; it’s an old religious expression. There is an organization; call it an order. It’s old — it’s a lot older than you think, it all goes back to that book I gave you. The Order’s purpose is to suppress knowledge about the multiverse; that it is possible to cross it, that it exists at all. I can understand why: all our beliefs about who and what we are challenged; the great religions just comfortable stories. Humankind cannot stand too much reality. The Order suffered a partial defeat when quantum theory itself developed the many-worlds interpretation, but they still have a firm grip on their central mission, to control communication and travel across the multiverse; and deep down, that is the ability to rewrite the programs of the universal quantum computer. They are the reality cops. Locally the Order is hereditary; it runs in certain old families who have access to the highest level of government, business, and the military. When Lula got elected, the first thing they did was shake his hand and say ‘Congratulations, Mr. President.’ The second thing they did was take him into a back room and introduce him to our Brazilian Sesmaria. The Sesmarias move slowly; the last thing they want is to attract attention. They have to live here; they’re not allowed to cross between worlds. But sometimes the opportunity arrives to strike a blow, and that’s when they call in an admonitory.”
“Me, when I started looking for Barbosa, that was their opportunity.”
“You were doing all their work for them. First they discredit you; then they replace you. And when they’re finished, they walk away into the multiiverse again.”
“It’s nothing to do with me, is it? I’m just convenient, a way for the Order to get to you.”
“In the multiverse, you are everything you can be. Villain, mother, assassin, saint. Maybe even hero.”
A crunch of tires. A horn blew twice. Mestre Ginga looked up. He left the small kitchen with its lingering tang of dende. Doors opening, doors closing; voices on the edge of audibility. Marcelina felt Mestre Ginga’s bright kitchen expand around her until it became a universe, her trapped in it, alone, isolate. Heitor used to say that when God is dead all we have left is conspiracy. This cold illusion, this book of ghosts would have satisfied his hard, gloomy worldview: the whirling noise and color and life of the city a dance of dolls knitted from time and words. Mestre Ginga’s cellular lay on the table. Cellular, beer, a coffee mug for a futebol team, a book from another universe. A Brazilian Last Supper. She could pick up that phone. She could call Heitor. He alone remained. Career, friends, family had been stripped away from her like a skin peel, deeper and deeper, rawer and rawer. She should call Heitor, warn him. Pick up the phone. Press out the number. But she had said that the next voice he heard would not be hers. He would not believe her. But she might have gotten to him already. Her: the other Marcelina. She knows you; she knows everything about you because she is you. Your thoughts are her thoughts, your strengths her strengths. You are your own worst enemy.
Your weaknesses her weaknesses.
The creak of the wrought-iron gate, footsteps on the floor tiles. The kitchen door opened. An old man, hair gone grizzle-gray bur his skin still bright and black and his bearing upright and glowing with energy, entered. He wore a light linen suit, pants taper-cuffed, high-waisted, and an open-necked silk shirt. Mestre Ginga followed. It was evident in every motion and muscle that he held the visitor in the greatest reverence. Marcelina felt compelled to rise. The old man shook her hand and settled himself heavily on a kitchen chair. “Good evening to you, Senhora Hoffman. I am very pleased to see you well. I am the man who made all Brazil cry.”
FEBRUARY 12, 2033
Two by cab. Two on the Metro Linea 4, on separate trains. Two in the van, the biggest risk; two already out and running in the rig. Edson by moto-taxi. Last of all, Fia. In one hour she will take a minibus cab to the rendezvous at the dead mall. No different from a show , Edson thinks. It’s all choreography. Each player is equipped with a one-shot cloned identity and has been rigorously de-arfided. Hamilcar and Mr. Smiles’s bill had taken the jaguar’s share of the A World Somewhere prize money; even so, Edson, clinging to the moto boy as he accelerates between two lines of traffic, imagines the talons of the Angels of Perpetual Surveillance reaching for his kidneys.
Efrim checked the restaurant thirty-six hours before go-day. Long tables, clean tiled floors, good food, and no one put their thumbs on the scales. Now in his Edson persona, he picks the big table by the window. The car pound runs from front to back on the block opposite; they’ll make their entrance from the rear.
Emerson and Big Steak first. Shake hands, a little high-carb, low-protein dinner. Then Edimilson and Jack Chocolate, that’s the garage team on-site. First real risk here: their gear is in a false-registration van parked out on the street. No one should get curious, but Edson taps his long, tapered fingers together in anxiety.
“Here, eat something.” Edson passes a roll of reis to the mechanics. He’s not eating, himself; he took a little corajoso when he paid the moto-boy, and it kicks in with an accompanying swooping nausea. His stomach lurches as he watches the mechanics load up on meat from the churrascaria. Keep it down, Edson. Waguinho and Furaçãio in the rig will arrive on target at the designated time. Where are Turkey-Feet and Treats? He flicks the time up in the corner of his I-shades. Fia will already have set off from the fazenda. Mr. Peach will drop her by the rodoviaria in Itaparaca; there is something headed into town every two minutes. He picked the old mall because it is enclosed and free from the eyes of cameras, but it’s big and out of the way and full of weirds and he doesn’t love the idea of her hanging around among them too long.
Where are Turkey-Feet and Treats?
Then Edson’s corajoso flickers and is snuffed out. Six cops have just come in, sat down at a table, big guns at their thighs, and are studying the menu.
Two good-byes.
“Hey, my mama.”
The custom in Cidade de Luz is that every sunset the women come out of their houses to walk. Singly or in pairs, by three or fours, feet encased in sports shoes worn only for this social occasion, elbows pumping to maintain aerobic capacity, they pace a time-hallowed route: the winding main road, the old High Road that runs parallel to the rodovia, the long slow ascent of Rua Paulo Manendes where by some economic gravitation only car-part factors and veterinarian supply stores have taken root. Men too walk the walk. They set out half an hour after the women and always walk widdershins, to meet the women face-to-face. They are invariably younger men, or fresh divorcees.
In the fast German car, Edson caught up with Dona Hortense and her walking friends outside the Happy Cats Veterinarian Supply Company and cruised in to the curb beside her. Dona Hottense peered under the brim of the white pimp’s hat.
“Edson? That you? Kind of you to come over and see me rather than sending that uneducated Treats round to my door to collect your laundry.”
“Come on, Mama, you know the trouble I’m in.”
“I don’t know, that’s the thing.” The girlfriends are looking at him as they might a cop or a debt collector.
“Mama, this is not the place.” Edson opened the door; Dona Hortense slid into the car, ran her hand over the leather upholstery.
“This is nice. Is it yours? Where did you get it?”
“A man. Mama, I have to go away.”
“I thought you might.”