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Of course we go as backup when Bristol goes to the auction. The windows of the car that she for-real rents are tinted enough that it doesn’t matter I’m not dressed like a chauffer, and the back is spacious enough that it doesn’t matter that Bits is sprawled in the footwells with her head in VR. She’s got all the cameras before we’re on site and feeds Bristol information about who’s already arrived, about security, about media, because there is media. “This is gonna flag you, you realize,” Bits says.
Bristol smiles a smile that only I can see, and says “Oh yes, darling, I’m well aware.” Our eyes meet in the rearview and she winks at me. I got no clue what level of 3D social chess she’s playin’ and I’d just as soon be left out of that aspect of the festivities, please. I like things to be more direct, which again, isn’t to say I’m in a real hurry to use this nice handgun I got. And while I’ve got a couple fast escape-from-Macau notions in my head, none of ‘em involve also having a dog that isn’t ours. Let’s hope it won’t come to that.
She gets out in the snowstorm of camera flashes and strides confidently up the walkway. I guess celebrities are expected to be at this gig, and I wonder who the photographers assume she is. Somebody’s girlfriend or mistress probably. Somebody’s go-between. They’ve latched onto her, fascinated by the mystery, and of course she fucking loves that. I watch for a sec, then drive away before the car behind us honks.
“I’ve got a stopwatch running on the first agency sort of communication I notice,” Bits says from behind me.
“I expect nothing less.” I think about making a bet, stop myself. No good borrowing trouble, no matter how fun it might be. Not like I’m very fucking cautious in my overall living. “Y’know, she mentioned that she had makeup that—”
“Messed with the cameras? Yeah that’s the pictures that people are posting on local groups, it’s like she’s got a mask of light.” Bits puts one of the images in the car’s dashboard screen for a second, for me to see.
“Modern problems require modern solutions,” I say dryly, fish the ecigarette out of my jacket pocket. I actually like real cigarettes better, it’s weird to go around smelling like cookies and cinnamon rolls and stuff in my particular area of expertise. It’s...the word isn’t contradictory, Bristol would know the word. It’s like naming your big dangerous killer ‘Bubbles.’ Or I guess like having your normal-sized dangerous killer named Dolly, so really I’m just provin’ my own point. At least I don’t have to figure out what to do with the cigarette butts, if I’m using an ecig. You’d think they would’ve come up with a better kind by now. Biodegradable. Eco-friendly. Edible. “You don’t mind?” I ask, not thinking about how she can’t see me, won’t know what I’m talking about.
“It’s okay.” Okay, fair enough.
Macau’s a nice place to drive around in, actually, especially at night if you get away from the main traffic. There’s a good loop you can do that still keeps you close to where you need to be. In case you need to swoop in and give somebody a fast getaway. Or have a deep and sudden need for luxury goods shopping in an indoor mall that has gondolas and a painted sky. I cruise, keeping an eye on the vehicle’s charge, wonder what I’d do to make money if I lived here. Could join one of those rideshare companies. Could do security for a club, or even one of the hotels, though I’m probably not polished enough in my appearance, in a manner of speaking. I haven’t noticed a single mechanic’s, but that doesn’t mean they ain’t here.
I think about the dog, but we put her in one of the bathrooms with food and water and a blanket from one of the beds, or a duvet Bristol called it. I don’t know what the fuckin difference is between a duvet and a comforter and a bedspread, but I guess there is one.
“How’s it looking?” I ask after awhile. Place like this, you don’t want the camera watchers watching you pass by too many times. Switching the route too much would take me too far away, but I don’t want to be noticeably parking either. “How long’s this shindig supposed to take?”
“They’re almost to the dogs now, and they definitely didn’t say that the dog’s been stolen or missing or anything, just that she’s no longer being auctioned tonight. Somebody left right after that and made a call, it bounced off a local tower. Bristol didn’t comment on it, so it’s fine, or she didn’t know who they were. The paparazzi didn’t say anything about them either.” A long pause, but normal in Bitsy’s way of doing things. “Okay that person went back to the auction.”
“Okay.” She puts him on the screen for me, a kind of sandy-haired white guy, maybe in a black suit or maybe it’s a tux, who cares. Nobody I recognize, so that’s good. “Send that to Bristol too.”
“Already did.”
“So what’s the demographic of our buyers here?”
“Are you asking if he and Bristol are the only white people? They aren’t.”
“You really know how to put somebody at ease.” I grin, take a different loop this time. Maybe I should learn how to blow smoke rings, that’d work for both real cigarettes and the e ones. Nothing too fancy, just a good old fashioned ring. I hope the dog is sleeping.
“It’s what you wanted to know!”
“Naw, it is. Did she say anything when you sent it.”
“No, but that could mean anything. She knows him, she’s never seen him before in her life, they used to go out...”
“That’s our girl.” No telling how many notches Bristol has on her belt, or even what a notch on her belt means to her. Just a few dates or actually lettin’ him run the bases. When the topic comes up she just kinda smiles mysteriously and says that a lady never tells, or something. Bits just always kinda shrugs, so I’m guessing she’s never felt particularly inspired on the topic, and pretty much neither of ‘em are interested in my range of conquests, from one of my closest road crew friends back home to a stewardess that one time in Berlin. Maybe those things are best kept quiet, who am I to say. It’s kind of a pity the stewardess thing didn’t work out, but she was too nervous about things, and I wouldn’t’ve been able to be honest with her, and that’s just no way to have a relationship.
“Looks like there are other cars pulling up,” Bits says. “I don’t know if it’s a problem yet.”
“Pulling up out front or out back?”
“Out back.”
“That weren’t there before?” I’m already turning around to take the direct route back to the conference center.
“I’m running their plates against the data I pulled before...no. They weren’t there before.”
“I don’t suppose what they’re packing is also wifi enabled.”
She starts to say something, probably tell me that’s not what it’s really called, and I know that’s not what it’s really called. Then she says “I didn’t scan for that, but I can see them on the cameras and it mostly looks like holstered handguns. They’re in suits or street clothes and filtering into the building, this isn’t geared paramilitary.”
“Fair enough.” The paparazzi have mostly cleared away when I pull back up. “Tell milady her chariot is here.”
“I already did.”
I tap my fingers on the steering wheel. “Soooo...”
“Give her a minute. Nothing’s wrong yet inside, she doesn’t want to Cinderella, she said.”
“What, is she talkin’ to a literal prince who might take her away from all this?”
“I am not going to ask her that,” she sighs.
I laugh. “Surprised you don’t already know.”
“I don’t background check everybody that walks past us.” She sounds a little huffy but more distracted than anything else.
“Guess it would get tiring.” Still no Bristol. I’m not the only car here at least, and I don’t see anybody looking our way, not from the conference center side of things or from the across the street way of things.
“Yeah. And it’s mostly boring. So many people are just really boring.”
“Not like us.”
“Mmmm.” She’s real quiet back there. It’s amazing to me, how just effortlessly still she can be, and for how long she can do it. I can do it, but it takes a lot of concentration. And it’s exhausting, the effort of doin’ nothing. Or, doing nothing in anticipation of sudden and vigorous activities, typically of the violent sort. Maybe also with some running and lifting. Climbing, stairs or fences. “Here she comes.”
“Thank Christ.” We were none of us raised religious, but still. I adjust my rearview so I can see that front walkway, and when I finally see Bristol, I can’t hear her, but in my head I can hear the sharp clack clack that her heels’re making, at that pace. She’s still moving too slow for my comfort, and stops for a painful thirty seconds to talk to one of the paparazzi, her head tilted just a little, nodding, laughing. “Tell her to—”
“I already did.”
Then finally, finally, she’s sliding into the back seat and I’m pullin’ away about the second she’s got the door closed, maybe a half tic earlier than that but who’s counting. There’s nothing guaranteeing there’s gonna be gunplay inside, or that the people attending the auction even know that there’s a whole buncha guys with guns cruising the halls that I cruised last night, but there’s nothing guaranteeing that won’t go sour, and we want to be well clear of that. We’re all well familiar with brushin’ up against the law, and it doesn’t make it any sweeter with repetition.
“Y’know, we spend an awful lotta time drivin’ you away from situations,” I say.
“In a very large way, you caused this situation,” she says, smirking.
“You didn’t still have to come to the auction,” Bits says, still on the floor.
“Oh but I did, it is always such a learning experience, rubbing elbows with these types.”
“I’m sure,” I say. I’d ask Bits if anybody noticed us or is following us, but that’s why she’s still on the floor. Just gotta trust the process. Bitsy knows what she’s about. Honestly, we’re lookin’ pretty good right now. “Anything you want to share with the rest of the class?”
“From the auction? I don’t imagine there was anything you were interested in, no.” I glance at her in the rearview, and she does seem to be genuinely considering. “I did receive another message from our intermediary, just confirming our engagement this evening.”
“Again?” That was just this morning that they hashed everything out again.
“He is rather nervous.”
“Apparently. Not really so great for him, to be in business like this.”
“I get the sense it isn’t his usual.”
I let that ride for a little while, counting the streetlights. “Get the sense? I thought you two were old friends.” Wait a second, Bristol treats everybody she meets like old friends.
She does one of those light little laughs, that make you think about blowing bubbles on a summer afternoon when you were a kid and you didn’t have to do much decision making. “Oh heavens no, I first spoke to him about six months ago I’d say.”
“Have you been...planning this for six months.”
“No, the day he asked me about it was the day I told you girls about it. My friend in Tokyo might know him better; she thought well enough of him to refer me for the job.”
“Alright then.” Six more streetlights. “But he knew about us?”
“Of course not, not specifically. He knew that I had associates.”
“And so does your Tokyo associate.”
“Oh yes, she does. You remember meeting her that once, when we were all in London? Keiko?”
“At that Oxford party.” Okay, yeah, I did remember Bristol’s Keiko. Doesn’t pay to second guess Bristol, but she leaves a hell of a lot out more than Bits does. “Okay, so we swing by the hotel for the dog, then we rendezvous and then, what, numbered bank account? Briefcase of cashola? Cryptocurrency?” I’m not second guessing. I’m just starting to feel real weird about this. Maybe not starting. Starting to acknowledge that I feel weird about this.
“Half numbered bank account, half cash.” She’s checking her makeup in a little mirror she pulled out of her little purse. “And anyway, Bits already has the bank account information.”
“Yup. And already disseminated the funds.”
“Oh, fair enough.” I guess that says a lot about who I am as a person, that I haven’t noticed a big ol’ deposit into my bank account. Well. My business bank account.
“I don’t imagine he’ll be so gauche as to put it in a briefcase.”
“No of course not,” I say, thinking of the briefcases of diamonds we once emptied. “Nobody ever does anything like that.”