BONG.
A thunderous gong: more cheers. Ten o’clock. The snow had stopped—he overheard someone say the hydraulic system was clogged, dredging up God knows what from the New York City water supply—and what was on the ground had melted, making it sloppy going underfoot. He began to think about finding a quiet place to sit, maybe even trying to figure out a way home, when he saw the marquee.
Blazing neon against a background of video confetti and flaking brick: a pavilion designed to look like a decrepit apartment building—an icehouse. He hurried through the entrance, pushing past three ragged teenagers with pincushion faces and retro crew cuts and eyes like mill wheels, sprawled in the mud against the building’s facade.
“Spare change?” one croaked.
Jack stepped over her. Inside was a warren of dank hallways and crumbling rooms, emblazoned with video screens that were doors into sunlight, ocean, mountaintop, sky. A few people milled about, a Japanese businessman, more stoned kids, an elderly woman whose plasmer lenses matched her cropped violet hair. It wasn’t until he wandered into the same rubble-strewn corridor for the third time that Jack realized the elderly violet-haired woman was turning her head in the exact same way she had before. He sucked his breath in; the woman continued to stare at a tape loop of erupting volcanoes. He stood, trying to find the lie to the illusion; finally approached her.
“Hello?” he said.
The woman ignored him. He moved his hand—it should have brushed the sleeve of her satin sheath. There was nothing there. When he jabbed at her his hand momentarily flickered from view; and then he could see it again, floating disembodied within the folds of her dress.
“Jack? Jack Finnegan?”
Someone grabbed his elbow.
“It is Jack, isn’t it!” Delighted laughter. “I thought I’d missed you, or you’d missed me—”
It was Larry Muso, looking extremely pleased. He wore a happi coat embroidered with sea animals—cuttlefish, octopuses, sea horses—over a black tunic and loose black trousers. His hair had been coiffed into a chambered nautilus threaded with gold and blue wire, tiny seashells, gilt starfish. Gold dust powdered his cheeks. His eyes were carefully edged in kohl.
“I know, I look like the Sea Hag!” he went on. “Were you here earlier? Did I miss you? Are you okay?”
He peered up into Jack’s face. “Jack? You don’t look very well, perhaps you should sit down?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” Jack ran a hand across his forehead. “Actually, I am a little hot—this exhibit, I just figured out—”
“Aren’t they remarkable? They’ve been in development for a while, but this is the first time we’ve run the programs in public. There are still a few bugs,” he confided, taking Jack’s arm and leading him to where a staircase spilled outside. “Of course it doesn’t work in daylight, so we’ve done it like this.”
They were outside now, treading carefully down the steps until they stood in a puddle of snowmelt and squashed grass. Larry stared into Jack’s face with disarming happiness, after a moment touched his hand.
“I am glad to see you. Are you hungry? Busy? I mean, do you have—plans?”
Jack laughed. “You mean, what am I doing New Year’s Eve? Nothing but this—”
He grabbed Larry’s shoulder, looked down to see Larry staring at him. For a moment they stood in silence. Jack’s heart thrummed inside him, there was a soft roaring in his ears, ghostly sparks behind his eyes. When he let his hand fall away from Larry’s arm, he heard the other man release his breath in a long sigh.
“So.” Larry Muso cleared his throat. “Would you like to have dinner?”
“Dinner? Sure.”
“Wait—there’s a catch. Because I have to be at GFI’s private tent in”—Larry withdrew a pocket watch from his coat—“thirteen minutes. This is the formal dinner for Mr. Tatsumi and our Board of Directors, also some very hush-hush guests, and maybe some surprises. I am required to be there, but I could arrange for you to be there as well.”
“But—Jesus, I’m not dressed for it, Larry.” Jack shook his head, “This has been a pretty horrible few days. A friend of mine died, and—”
“Hush.” Larry rested a finger against his lips. “I can find you a jacket and tie, my friend. They may even fit,” he added, eyeing Jack’s lanky frame. “You look very tired.”
“I know. I’m in pretty bad shape. Probably I shouldn’t even have come.”
“No.” Larry took his arm. “I’m so glad you did. Come with me now—”
And Jack went.
GFI’s private pavilion was walled with light, pulsing columns twenty feet high arranged in a great circle.
“A new kind of full-spectrum fluorescent,” Larry Muso explained as they stopped at a checkpoint. “Very low wattage, very efficient. They promote serotonin production.”
“That’s great.” said Jack. Larry’s relentless enthusiasm was pure balm, Larry himself was balm, his ridiculous clothes and laughter, those lovely dark eyes.
“Yes, it is.” Larry stepped aside so that the security guards could search Jack, photograph and fingerprint him. A jacket had been found, black silk Armani, far too big. Jack did the best he could, rolling up the sleeves, took the paisley foulard Larry gave him and tied it loosely about his throat.
“Do I look like an idiot?”
“You look very, very good.”
Jack lifted his hand to touch Larry’s cheek. He leaned forward until that absurd pelagic curl of hair brushed his face, and felt something fall away inside him, an iceberg calving; a grief so old he hadn’t even known he was frozen.
I could love him, he thought. If it’s not too late.
“Late?”
Jack saw Larry’s head cocked questioningly. Had he spoken aloud?
“It is almost ten-thirty,” Larry said. “But the party goes on through tomorrow.”
They passed beneath a glowing arch where a holographic gryphon reared and clasped the sun to its breast, into an open space where tables were laid out with bloodred cloths, spare arrangements of black twigs, and golden ornaments shaped like sun and moon and stars, crystal glasses, gleaming flatware, bone white chopsticks. Overhead the space yawned into the glittering uppermost reaches of the dome, false stars twinkling, moon now at full. Fifty or so people were scattered around the area. Men in black tie and robes and kente cloth, women in elegant evening wear, masks held in bejeweled hands. Jack recognized a few of them—a well-known stage actress of middle years, a television anchorman who had covered the war in South Korea; a mori artist who’d been a protégé of Leonard’s. Clink of glasses, soft tread of waiters. Tuxedoed men bore champagne, Scotch, trays of sushi and tiny fresh strawberries.
“Here.” Larry Muso scooped several pieces of uni and tow onto a chilled plate and handed it to Jack. “I won’t be able to sit with you, but I’ve put you at a table with—”