Chapter 19

“We’re buying CDs and we’re buying lingerie. We’ll put it on a charge account we’re never gonna pay. Department store, camera store, tobacco store, appliance store. You buy everything you want, and then you want more.”

-Warren Zevon, “Down in the Mall“

Hi, Susan here. Mander drove Julie and I to the SeaTac Mall, where we switched cars with one of the Ultimados. Then, he drove us to the airport parking garage, where we switched cars with another before going downtown to meet Helen.

“We got home like this last night.” I looked over at the other rear passenger seat and said to Julie. “We changed cabs twice on the way back from the consulate, too.”

Rain splattered the windshield as Mander made his way up I-5 for what had to be the fourth time for him in the past two days (If you include the drive up from Portland.).

I looked down at my outfit again and over to Julie. We were both dressed in long coats, with kerchiefs wrapped around our heads to conceal our hair. Dark sunglasses completed the look.

“Is there a special reason,” I asked her. “Why Helen wants us to dress like 1970s housewives sneaking off to meet The Other Man at a seedy motel?”

“I’m guessing so that if any paparazzi get our pictures, we’ll be unrecognizable.”

“I don’t know about that.” Mander said from the driver’s seat. “Two beautiful ladies with ‘Er Countessness. So, three beautiful ladies? Someone’s gonna wanna know who those ‘mysterious beauties’ with ‘er are.”

“Thanks. And that’s why she wanted us to wear striking shoes.” Julie said, before turning to me from Mander. “Any cameras we come across will all be pointed at Helena. But one of them, like Mander says, might think to care who these ‘mystery women’ are, so someone MAY snap a picture of us. And the shoes are a detail that’ll stand out. Neither of us have ankle tattoos, so if anyone remembers us, it’ll be for our feet and the shoes. If we have to risk camera exposure, those’ll be the detail that draws the eye. Worst case, you have to live with the knowledge that somewhere in the South, a Baptist minister or politician is whacking off to a picture of your feet.” She lowered her sunglasses and looked me in the eye. “You get used to it.”

It sounded logical.

There were more protesters outside the Seattle Hotel de Società Finzione than yesterday. Different groups now, dressed for the rain. Mostly protesting all the violence from yesterday. The cops in riot gear with assault rifles were now patrolling the streets, as well as gathered around the barricades. By an astounding coincidence, one of the Ultimados had just retrieved the LeBaron, and we found the same spot vacant as yesterday.

“Sue had this idea yesterday,” I told Julie as we walked. “Of grabbing a megaphone and telling all the racist assholes to go home and read a science book or something.”

Julie thought about that a moment.

“Troy would approve, then he’d rethink it and disapprove. Half the crowd have their phones out and are recording this. I know the whole ‘million hits on YouTube overnight’ thing’s only in the movies, but half the videos that get to that point started out like George Carlin said. ‘There’s always some dick, some yo-yo, some putz; and he is going to film EVERYTHING!’ Some guy’s walking around with a camera, just in case he sees something like a beautiful woman taking a bullhorn and commanding a crowd of idiots to go home and realize that other people having the same rights as them isn’t a bad thing; and them all doing it. What have you said was the main lesson you took from all those years of customer service?”

“EVERYONE has ALWAYS been ‘waiting twenty minutes’ for their food or on hold. Never more, never less. Twenty minutes every time.”

“The other thing.”

I sighed.

“‘That Guy’ is always out there. Dammit, Troilus, you’re not even here and you’re right.”

We made our way through the crowd. I decided not to go topless this time. Thinking about it now, it’s entirely likely that someone caught me on camera. However, I wasn’t doing anything anyone else in the crowd wasn’t doing, and Julie’s earlier example was probably true there, too: If anyone got me on film, they’re probably just jerking it to my tits somewhere right now. Suzy-Ho told me she could certainly live with the knowledge as we entered the lobby.

Helen was upstairs, surveying the damage up in the La Contessa suite. None of us were in the security system to use the express elevator, and the regular elevators weren’t serving that floor currently, so I tried phoning Helen from the lobby. It went through on the third try, and she sent Velazquez, now in uniform, down to collect us. The hallway upstairs to enter the suite looked like ... well, like a small war had been held in it yesterday. I looked at the bullet holes, broken decorations, and the hunk of twisted metal that was one of the fire exit doors the day before and remembered seeing those explosions on the monitors. It’d been such a nice place the last time I walked through it.

Contessa Helena de San Finzione sat on one of the couches and beckoned us over. She was on the phone with Maria, speaking Italian. I knew this not just because she said Maria’s name, but because as of yesterday, I know the language myself. Something Suzy-Q brought back from one of her trips to Helen’s Subconscious. I mouthed a “Hi, Maria” as we sat and did the math in my head. One in the afternoon in Seattle would be ten o’clock at night in San Finzione. Helen told her that we were here, Maria said hi back, and they ended the call.

“Everyone ok?” I asked her.

“Yeah. The Triads are boarding up their windows in San Finzione, and I’m going to have to convince a movie studio to come film a summer blockbuster in the city.”

“Or buy one.” Julie replied. Helen’s eyes lit up at that. She picked up her phone again and held it in the way she does when she’s about to leave a voice memo to Jeanne. From Helen’s tone and what I could guess of the French by what I know in Italian, it seemed she was asking Jeanne to see if any movie studios were for sale. (I also understand why Julie was so confused last night, as she searched her head for French words to approximate the Italian ones that I was saying and deduce the meaning.) She ended the memo and lit a new cigarette. I looked in the ash tray and saw she’d had more than a few while waiting for us.

“Called Whyte, he’s leaking the video of me in the warehouse where all this started, commanding those goons around. It’ll hit the evening news.”

“Can’t you deny it?” Julie asked. “Say it’s not you on the tape?”

“Oh no,” Helen replied. “He hasn’t shown it to me, but I commanded them to carve things into each other’s foreheads, and one guy got his own cattle prod up the ass; he wouldn’t have anything to show the media if it wasn’t good.”

“So, are you saying it’s time to start packing up the house for San Finzione?” I asked.

Helen gave a worried smile, as if she wanted to say “maybe,” but was looking for a spin to put on it.

“That offer’s not just for emergencies, you know.” Helen replied, having found one. “Just, any time you’re bored with the country whose very name is a bigger punchline than mine on Rita’s show.”

“Oh, Claire texted,” Julie said, giving Helen her out. “She said she’d forgotten to compliment you on your response to the ‘grab ‘em by the pussy’ thing.”

I remembered her response, but let them steer the conversation. I picked up that the “pack up and move” discussion wasn’t one either wanted to have right now, and let them make their way back to Helen’s problem.

“Thanks, but I’ll grab my own. I have more faith that MY dainty little lady-hands are up to the job than yours?”

“Yeah. She asked if you’d leave it as a voice mail before you go. And speaking of going, what’re we going to do about this?”

“And why,” I asked. “Does it involve us dressing like we’re bored with our suburban lives and are going out shoplifting to get some kind of thrill?”

Helen turned to Julie.

“You explained the shoe thing, right?”

“On the way here.” Julie responded.

“Ok, good.” Helen nodded to her, then turned back to me. “I have to bury the story. We can’t go to every news station in town, seeing if anyone’s gotten an anonymous video of me. I have to give them something that’ll make them forget all about it. I need to make a big, extravagant splash. I asked you two to dress like that for the same reason I’m going to have to ask Mander to hang back. There will be cameras. Paparazzi intervention was inevitable. And, as it happens, necessary. I just need to think of someone I know locally...” She took another drag, her eyes widened.

“Boris,” Helen whispered almost reverently. “I have one more call to make to set everything up, then we can go. Have you had lunch yet?”

“Not yet.” Julie admitted.

“Right.” Helen nodded. “What’s the most expensive place in town? We’ll start there.”

“Metropolitan Grill‘s open.” Julie said, taking out her emerald green iPad.

“Do they take reservations?” Helen said, getting up and walking toward the balcony door.

“Yeah.”

“Perfect. Don’t make one. Call’s going through, just a sec.” Helen started walking toward the master bedroom, speaking Russian to someone, presumably the Boris she’d just mentioned. I turned to Julie.

“Do you know what she’s got planned?” I asked her.

“Something requiring an entourage. Helen generally doesn’t have one of those, unless you count the Ultimados, but they’re on the job. That’s where we’d come in: as her hangers-on. I’m not sure what it is yet, but I’m guessing we’re about to do something that only rich, famous, pretty white girls can get away with.”

“So,” I thought aloud. “Absolutely anything.”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Helen returned, saying “dosvedanya” to whomever Boris is and ending her call. She grabbed her black Prada Arcade purse from the table and turned back to us. “Shall we go? We’re going to need a decent lunch.”

We left, and she continued talking on the way down the elevator. Velasquez was still too famous for the video of her and Maisson shooting Morgan to be seen by the media in public again, so Sgt. Pappas and three other Ultimados whom I hadn’t met before escorted us. (It’s not like I’ve met every one of them. Just, ya know, a lot.)

“So, if low-profile was what I was trying, and failing, admittedly, to do yesterday, today, I need the exact opposite. I need paparazzi swarming about, watching my every move, and hanging onto my every word. I’m talking about complete overexposure! It’s coming up on one, now. By six o’clock tonight, I need Ma and Pa America to be completely fucking sick of hearing the name Contessa Helena de San Finzione, and reporters sick of saying my whole name and title like that and giving me an asinine nickname that makes anyone with a brain change the channel or stop reading right there! If we want to start taking bets now, my money’s on ‘H-Fin.’ So, we’re hitting the town. I posted on Twitter where we’re going for lunch.”

“Didn’t Whyte kill some guys at lunch yesterday?” I asked. “Isn’t that a really bad move?”

“That was when the Elders were backing him up. Now he’s got to be more careful than that. I’ve got dirt on him, too. At least three confessions to murder and sending Morgan to kill me. But the fucker’s right; I have more to lose than he does.”

“So...” I thought aloud some more. “Your plan to keep us from being discovered is to drag us in front of cameras all day?”