There was an arming sequence, on the iPhone now, that required a thumb and forefinger, with the other forefinger needed to fire the thing. Milgrim hadn’t been entirely sure what a Taser was before, but he was getting an idea. If he accidentally fired it, here in the Vegas cube, a pair of barbed electrodes would shoot out, on two thin fifteen-foot cables, propelled by compressed gas. That was strictly once-only, the barb-shooting. If the barbs went into Bigend’s spotless plasterboard wall, the penguin was anchored there, he supposed, and there was a lot of fine cable around. But if you tapped the iPhone again, in the firing circle on the screen, the wall got shocked. Which wouldn’t bother the wall, but if those barbs happened to get into anybody, which was what they were actually for, that person got a shock, a big one. Not the kind that would kill you, but one that could knock you down, stun you. And there was more than one shock stored in the toy airship cabin Voytek had taped under there.
Fiona said that he wouldn’t have to worry about any of that when he flew the penguin. She said it was just extra bells and whistles, something Garreth had tossed in because he’d happened to run across the Taser. That was what Voytek had indicated, grumpily, on his way out, when they’d gotten back here on the Yamaha.
But that wasn’t what Garreth had told him, in Hollis’s hotel room. Garreth had said that he needed Fiona to operate the other drone, the one with the little helicopters, so he needed Milgrim to operate the penguin. To keep an eye on the general area, he said. When Milgrim asked which area that was, Garreth had said that he didn’t know yet, but that he was sure Milgrim would do very well. Milgrim, remembering the pleasure he’d taken in rolling the black ray, decided that simply nodding was the best course. Though the idea of anyone wanting him to operate anything was new. Other people operated things, and Milgrim observed them doing it. But, he supposed, he was really only being asked to observe something, whatever it was, through the cameras in the penguin, and it was best, as Fiona suggested, to regard the Taser as a random add-on.
It was harder to get the penguin to do anything, in the constrained space of the Vegas cube, than it had been to get the ray to do those rhythmic somersaults, but he was starting, now, to manage a repeated stationary roll. If he bumped the wall, Fiona noticed, and didn’t like it, so he tried to be as careful as he could. She said that the robotics in the wings were fragile, and the penguin was helpless without them. It didn’t really fly, because penguins don’t, and it was a balloon; rather, it swam, through air instead of water, and once you had it going where you wanted it to, it knew how to swim by itself. He was careful to keep that overridden now. He wished they could take the thing out and really fly it, the way he’d seen her fly the other one in Paris, but she said that they couldn’t, because people might see it and get excited, and because Garreth had ordered her to keep him inside.
Being kept inside with Fiona was an excellent thing, as far as Milgrim was concerned, but he was starting to recall Hollis’s scary-looking shower with something other than fear. “I wish there was a shower here,” he said, slowing the penguin’s roll, bringing the Taser around until it was on the bottom, stopping it. There was something wonderfully satisfying about this thing, something silky about the way it worked.
“There is,” said Fiona, looking up from his Air, where she sat at the table.
“There is?” Milgrim, on his back on the white foam, glanced around the blank white walls, thinking he’d missed a door.
“Benny has one rigged up. Drivers use it, sometimes. It has a geyser so old that it has a box that used to take coins. I could do with one myself.”
Milgrim was simultaneously aware of the stickiness of his armpits and what even the briefest image of Fiona in a shower did to him. “You go first, then.”
“You can’t trust Benny’s geyser,” said Fiona. “Get it working, it’ll go once, then stop. We should shower together.”
“Together,” said Milgrim, and heard the voice he only had in police custody. He coughed.
“We’ll leave the light out,” said Fiona, who was looking at him with an expression he couldn’t identify at all. “I’m not supposed to let you out of my sight. Literally. That was what he said.”
“Who?” asked Milgrim, in his own voice.
“Garreth.” She was wearing her armored pants, low on her hips as she sat on one of Bigend’s elegant chairs, and a tight T-shirt, white, that said RUDGE at the top of a round black emblem, the size of a dinner plate, and COVENTRY at the bottom. Between these names was a red heraldic hand, open and upright, its palm presented as if to warn anyone off the small but prominent breasts behind it.
“If it’s all right with you,” said Milgrim.
“I suggested it, didn’t I?”
71. THE UGLY T-SHIRT
Where are you? Robert said you left with a woman.”
She was leaving the denim shop with Meredith and Clammy. “Soho. I did. Meredith. On my way back now.”
“Should have given you the sort of safe-word I gave your employer.”
“No. It’s okay.”
“Better if you’re not out.”
“Necessary, though.”
“But you’re coming back now?”
“Yes. See you soon.”
She looked from the phone in her hand to the faintly candlelit window. Shadows of people. Two more arriving now, to be admitted by Bo. Meredith thought she’d seen an associate editor from French Vogue. Clammy had ignored several other musicians, slightly older than he was, whom Hollis vaguely recognized. Otherwise, not what she thought of as a fashion crowd. Something else, though she didn’t know what. But she could tell that the secret Bigend had been chasing had already been starting to emerge when he’d given her the assignment. Already Hounds wasn’t a secret in the same way. He was too late. What did that mean? Was he losing his touch? Had he been too focused on his project with Chombo? Had Sleight somehow been skewing the flow of information?
Clammy’s little gray wagon arrived, driven by a very Clammy-looking boy Clammy didn’t bother to introduce. He popped out, handed Clammy the keys, nodded, and walked away.
“Who was that?” Hollis asked.
“Assistant,” said Clammy absently, opening the door on the passenger side. He had an unmarked manila shopping bag the size of a small suitcase. “You’ll have to hold this for me.”
“What did you get?”
“Two of the black, two of the chino, two shirts, and the black of your jacket.”
“And something for you,” said Meredith, to Hollis.
“It’s on top,” said Clammy impatiently. “Get in.”
Hollis folded herself, sideways, onto the rear bench, and accepted Clammy’s bag as best she could. A potent waft of indigo.
Clammy and Meredith got in, doors closing. “It was the first thing she ever did,” said Meredith, looking back. “Before she started Hounds.”
Hollis found something wrapped in unbleached tissue, atop Clammy’s thick, heavy pad of denim. Fumbled it out, pulling the tissue aside. Dark, smooth, heavy jersey. “What is it?”
“That’s for you to work out. A seamless tube. I’ve seen her wear it as a stole, an evening dress of any length, several different ways as skirts. Fabric’s amazing. Some ancient factory in France, this latest batch.”