Virtual Light

39. Celebration on a gray day

He asks more frequently after the girl…”

“She’s in jail down in L.A.” Fontaine said.

“Jail?”

“Out on bail this morning, or that’s what she said last night. I was on my way over to bring you this.” He took a phone from his pocket and handed it to Yamazaki. “She has that number. Just don’t go making too many calls home, you hear?”

“Home?”

“Japan.”

Yamazaki blinked. “No. I understand…”

“I don’t know what she’s been up to since that damned storm hit, but I’ve been too busy to bother thinking about it. We got the power back but I’ve still got an injury case nobody’s bothered to claim yet. Fished him out of what was left of somebody’s greenhouse, Wednesday morning. Sort of down under your place, there, actually. Don’t know if he hit his head or what, but he just keeps coming around a little, then fading off. Vital signs okay, no broken bones. Got a burn along his side could be from a bullet, some kind of hot-shoe load…”

“You would not take him to a hospital?”

“No” Fontaine said, “we don’t do that unless they ask us to, or unless they’re gonna die otherwise. Lot of us have good reason not to go to places like that, get checked out on computers and all.”

“Ah” Yamazaki said, with what he hoped was tact.

“Ah so” Fontaine said. “Some kids probably found him first, took his wallet if he had one. But he’s a big healthy brother and somebody’ll recognize him eventually. Hard not to, with that bolt through his johnson.”

“Yes” Yamazaki said, failing to understand this last, “and I still have your pistol.”

Fontaine looked around. “Well, if you feel like you don’t need it, just chuck it for me. But I’ll need that phone back, sometime. How long you gonna be staying out here, anyway?”

“I… I do not know.” And it was true.

“You be down here this afternoon, see the parade?”

“Parade?”

“November fifteenth. It’s Shapely’s birthday. Something to see. Sort of Mardi Gras feel to it. Lot of the younger people take their clothes off, but I don’t know about this weather. Well, see you around. Say hi to Skinner.”

“Hi, yes” Yamazaki said, smiling, as Fontaine went on his way, the rainbow of his crocheted cap bobbing above the heads of the crowd.

Yamazaki walked toward the coffee-vendor, remembering the funeral procession, the dancing scarlet figure with its red-painted rifle. The symbol of Shapely’s going.

Shapely’s murder, some said sacrifice, had taken place in Salt Lake City. His seven killers, heavily armed fundamentalists, members of a white racist sect driven underground in the months following the assault on the airport, were still imprisoned in Utah, though two of them had subsequently died of AIDS, possibly contracted in prison, steadfastly refusing the viral strain patented in Shapely’s name.

They had remained silent during the trial, their leader stating only that the disease was God’s vengeance on sinners and the unclean. Lean men with shaven heads and blank, implacable eyes, they were God’s gunmen, and would stare, as such, from all the tapes of history, forever.

But Shapely had been very wealthy when he had died, Yamazaki thought, joining the line for coffee. Perhaps he had even been happy. He had seen the product of his blood reverse the course of darkness. There were other plagues abroad now, but the live vaccine bred from Shapely’s variant had saved uncounted millions.

Yamazaki promised himself that he would observe Shapely’s birthday parade. He would remember to bring his notebook.

He stood in the smell of fresh-ground coffee, awaiting his turn.

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