Glimmering

“Couldn’t you have helped her?” Jack pushed his plate away. The young Asian woman to his left glanced at him, her skin creamy orange from lichen supplements, teeth capped to look like blue-veined marble. “I mean, you could have—”

“Couldn’t do a fucking thing, Jackie-boy.” Leonard grinned cheerlessly. “God’s Mafia. And the young ones are the worst. All that energy they should put into drugs and fucking? Goes right into this other shit. Blowing up hospitals. Save the whales.”

To his side, a well-dressed man with a graying ponytail frowned. Leonard lifted his champagne glass to him and pronounced, “‘Curse God and die.’ I say, fuck Him.” The man turned away as Leonard continued. “Admit it, Jackie. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be bored out of your mind. You’d be—”

“Shut up, Leonard,” Jack said wearily. “Just shut up.”

Leonard focused his attention back on his food. Jack swiveled to look across the room. At the head table, a middle-aged Japanese man sat between two men in tuxedos and their wives. Several scary-looking bodyguards stood behind him, all flak jackets and plasmer eyes.

That would be Mr. Tatsumi, thought Jack. He wondered about Mrs. Tatsumi, recalling the news report he’d heard some time ago—that her death had been a suicide. He gazed across the head table until he spotted Larry Muso, seated between two young men conventionally dressed in tuxedos and luminous cummerbunds. The three of them smiled and nodded to one another, oblivious to his stare.

The sextet took a break. A bland old Europop hit oozed from the speakers. Jack toyed with his chopsticks. When a waiter started to remove his plate Leonard snagged the octopus and popped it into his mouth. The waiter slid a new plate in front of Jack, this one with salad greens.

“Eat,” ordered Leonard. He poked Jack with his fork. “Not even the Pope gets food like this. Eat your goddamn salad.”

Jack ate. When it was gone he took a gulp of champagne, hesitated, then said, “She told me Blue Antelope was going to blow this place up. Nellie Candry. She said there was going to be some kind of terrorist attack.”

Leonard shook his head. “Not this place per se. Just the Fougas. They want to sabotage any attempt to interfere with the Big Guy’s plan for us. Which seems to be not unlike His plan for T. Rex.”

Jack stared at Leonard, incredulous. “It’s true?”

“True? Yeah, probably.”

“They’re going to blow it up?” Jack pointed at the dome high above them. “She was telling me the goddamn truth? The drugs, and now this? Why the fuck didn’t you—”

He started from his chair, but Leonard yanked him back down. “Shut up, Jackie,” he said evenly. “You want to get arrested?”

“I don’t give a—”

“That’s right! That’s the attitude to take. Don’t—give—a fuck,” Leonard said very carefully. “Who knows what the hell’s going to happen? Who cares?”

“I do. I mean, I care if I die—”

“Get over it.” Leonard leaned forward. “What are you going to do, go and tell security? What do think will happen then? I’ll tell you: you’ll get a long vacation in a holding cell, with interrogators and other friendly visitors. That’s if you make it out of here. I bet half the staff in this room are Blue Antelope operatives.

“Drink your champagne, Jackie-boy. ’Cause this is it, apocalypse ciao. Those Fougas?”

Leonard cocked his thumb at the dome. The stars had abruptly dimmed, and the moon. Jack saw the grid of glass and metal, and beyond it a churning whirlpool of purple and green and blue, speared by crimson lightning. Within it the seven dirigibles floated serenely, a pod of whales in a Satanic storm.

“They’re not going to do shit,” Leonard hissed. “What, you think this is Star Wars? You think you can save the fucking world by having it put on sunglasses? This is terminal, Jack. Goddamn cancer ward. The best we can hope for now is a good show. And good drugs.”

Jack stared at him, aghast. “Then why did you come here?”

“‘The sky is full of good and bad, but mortals never know.’”

“What’s that? Fucking Euripides?”

“Robert Plant. It’s a party, Jackie. ‘Here we are now, entertain us!’ Why the hell not? What else were you going to do? Sit up there in the family mausoleum and watch the river rise while you wait to die? I couldn’t let you do that. At least this way you got a night out. I mean, isn’t it better this way? Aren’t you happy, Jackie-boy?” He took Jack’s hand. “Aren’t you glad to be with me, Jackie? Here at the end of all things?”

“Fuck you.” Jack shoved his chair back. “Julie’s right, you’re a fucking psychotic.”

“Maybe. But Julie’s dead, and I’m not. I’m here, now. I’m alive, even if it’s just for another”—Leonard thrust his wrist out and perused the moon-phase Rolodex there. “Oh, another twenty-three minutes.”

“What happens in twenty-three minutes?”