Sleepless (24 page)

Stay focused.

Francine is leaving. I need to help with the baby. Stay focused.

THE GALLERY WAS beyond the southeastern edge of Skid Row, in one of the abandoned warehouses of the Los Angeles wholesale produce market. It was not, fortunately, in one of the warehouses decommissioned while still full of fruits and vegetables that had been half-rotted by the time they were received, and thoroughly rotted by the time it was realized that the cost of moving whatever was salvageable to market would far outstrip any profits. Those warehouses were some distance away; still, the massive tonnage of what was, by now, high-quality compost permeated the air with a sweetness that was nearly overwhelming. I saw more than one black-swathed artiste with previous experience of the space sniffing at a sachet of potpourri. Most made do by dipping cocktail napkins into their plastic cups of wine, using them to cover their noses.

Making no effort to camouflage the smell, I found that it became increasingly difficult to concentrate on the present moment. As is often the case with intense and singular odors, this one evoked a powerful nostalgia. Our sense of smell registers in the reptile bits of the brain at the top of the spine. Who hasn't been thrown back to some unpleasantness or delight by a sudden whiff of an old lover's cologne or the unexpected combination of burned toast and mint dish soap? In the gallery, I was recalling deep loam and mulch, limitless greenery and rains, rot that ate your uniform from your back, undergrowth matted in sweet jungle muck soil.

In mind of my formative years.

In such a state it was essential that I concentrate. I was, after all, armed and in the presence of a large number of people. The smell and the tide of memory could have easily washed away my controls and defenses, leaving behind the exposed carcass of my true self.

I will confess that I allowed that self a moment's freedom. It duly took stock of the strategic situation, selected targets, and calculated how many innocent dead might be manufactured before some of the more able personal security contractors attached to the gallery's wealthier patrons took action and maneuvered me into an inevitable cross fire at the far corner of the warehouse near the bathrooms. But before I could mount the three steps that led to a lectern from which select pieces in the show would soon be auctioned, and which afforded superior firing lines, I focused my concentration on a square of tagboard and its hand-lettered description of the work of art above it.

It would not do to be run to ground in such a place, riddled with bullets by hired guns. That it was an art gallery was insufficient. The smell aside, the DJ was playing irritating French chamber pop. I would not die to that sound track.

My painstakingly assembled life had meaning. The litter of bodies that lined the path I had walked these many years were not incidental or random. There was a reason for so much death.

I would know the moment. Vague about so much else, I knew with utter certainty that I would see and recognize the moment of my death, the shape and purpose of my life revealed in my passing.

I could bear to wait some more.

So I looked at the art.

Mounted on an eighteen-by-eighteen-inch square of what appeared to be salvaged parquet flooring, framed in Deco chrome, long black enamel accents at the corners, the piece was a kind of collage. In the lower right corner was a list of enemies vanquished, quests completed, treasures found, mountains scaled, riddles answered. In the lower left, a clumsy but earnest pencil portrait on blue-lined graph paper of a one-eyed pirate, long hair held back by a bandanna, dangling chains and trinkets revealed by an open-neck shirt. Above both of these elements was a handheld gaming or Internet device. It was difficult to identify a make or model as the case of the gadget had been removed, leaving a green resin board etched in thin lines of gold and silver, miniature numbered and lettered keys, several chips, a disk of bright silicon, a cluster of colored wires, and a screen with a five-inch diagonal. Across this screen a high-resolution version of what I took to be the pirate pictured below swashed and buckled. On the high seas, at land, with cutlass, dagger, or bare wits, he gave proof that the list of derring-do below were not the bluffs of an armchair buccaneer. Dead center of the three items was a dull silver thumb drive. Nondescript, a Memorex 2G. Fragments of yellowed computer punch cards, the inner works of broken clocks, and cloudy paste stones, Salvation Army junk jewelry, decorated the spaces between the key elements.

The tagboard below the piece explained that I was looking at Kelvin Ripu, a level 87 Raider Prince, Last Commodore of the Orcan Fleet, Possessor of the Trident Perilous, Rider of Winds, Lord of Waves. It explained further that Kelvin was the creation of "gamer/artist" Kevin Puri, a twenty-seven-year-old call-center team manager in Mumbai. Kevin had been "crafting" Kelvin for five years. The piece was composed of Kevin Puri's handwritten and signed account of Kelvin's greatest accomplishments within Chasm Tide, his own drawing of the character, digitally preserved highlights of Kelvin in action, and the character itself, password, account number, the entire long string of 1s and 0s that it was knitted from, preserved in the thumb drive. All other traces of Kelvin Ripu, I was assured by the description, had been erased from the Chasm Tide mainframes and Kevin Puri's own desktop and backup hard drive.

The art object itself had been conceived and assembled by Shadrach, best known for the street and performance art he executed within Chasm Tide.

Kelvin was being offered for sale at 25,000 U.S. dollars. A little red sticker on the wall let me know that someone had already met that price.

A young man projecting a passable counterfeit of the negligent aura of an obscure rock star or fiercely independent film director stood at the center of a small crowd, commenting on the market for the works on display.

"Are they collectible? Yes. But they're more than that. They're also fully playable. As is, they are static works of art. Lavished with attention by the gamer/artists. The accomplishments, the artifacts they carry, the look of the characters, are the fulfillment of dreams. Inspired by a setting in Chasm Tide, or a mounting surface, or a frame, or some found object that he wishes to incorporate, Shadrach seeks out the characters that can be ultimately completed by inclusion in one of his pieces. But once you own them, these works of art change in nature. The owner of a character's account is the animating soul. The life. If you so choose, you can break the glass, pay to reactivate the account, and evolve the work. These pieces are finished as they hang on the wall, but you decide if they are alive."

He touched the corner of a heavy Baroque frame, the gilding peeling off in long curls, a sorceress of some kind pinned behind the glass.

"They are collectible. Changeable. In-game, you can breed them if you like. They are unique."

"They're fake."

This interjection came from another young man, one whose quite genuine aura of wealth, privilege, and fame easily outshone the lecturer and exposed highlights of envy and resentment.

The lecturer put his hands in the pockets of the narrow-lapeled, three-button black sharkskin jacket he wore over a blue and white argyle V-neck sweater vest.

"These are thoroughly authenticated Shadrach originals. These are first-sale items, fresh from Shad's studio. Each one has an RFID chip on the mounting, worked into the aesthetics of the piece, actively broadcasting a catalogue number, date of completion, and title."

The famous youth, now illuminated by the staccato flashes of the event's official photographer, and lesser blips of light from the cells and digicams of the growing crowd of onlookers, turned his attention to the sorceress on the wall, presenting his profile to the lenses.

"I'm not suggesting that Shadrach, when he wasn't wandering around Chasm painting his tag on castle walls or working on the logos for his new T-shirt line, didn't have his assistant place an ad on a few message boards offering to buy high-level characters for cash. Or that he didn't have some other assistants go out and hit a few dozen estate sales and come back with crates of stuff they could break up and glue-gun back together into these. What I'm saying is that they're fake art. They are not art at all."

There was a general mutter of titillation, over which the heathen youth raised his voice.

"These are piecemeal imitations of real art created by real artists. These are random characters. Some of them are interesting, but they are mostly just high-level hack-n-slashers loaded with uberartifacts that the players likely bought black market. People sold them to Shadrach because they don't play the game anymore or they have better characters and they're bored of these ones or because they're hard up for the money. The real art, the real characters are being created by gamers who have a vision when they enter Chasm. They start with the blank canvas, and they fill it, working toward a specific skill set, level, a list of deeds that adds up to something. They spend hundreds of hours, months, crafting a character until it's done. Artists like Tierra Boswell, Manute, Carolyn Liu, they're painting with the game, making beautiful things. These on the wall, these are just toys no one plays with anymore."

The mutter threatened to boil over into hubbub.

The lecturer raised his hand.

"Process is process. Michelangelo didn't paint the Sistine Chapel on his own; he had dozens of assistants helping him. Warhol? He used an assembly line. Is anyone going to dispute that he was creating art? Shadrach's process does involve commerce, and it does include the invaluable help of his apprentices. And certainly other artists are working in this medium. Rodin wasn't the only sculptor to work in bronze, was he? That doesn't change the uniqueness of his vision."

A cell rang, the opening synthesizer drone from "Down in the Park," and the famous young man took a Nokia e77 from his messenger bag.

"If it doesn't bother you people that Shadrach buys half these characters directly from the gold farms, by all means buy them and hang them on your walls. Your character will show in the quality of the character art you display. Excuse me, I have a call I have to take."

He put the phone to his ear, turned his back, and walked away, the gravity of his fame drawing not only his own entourage but also the photographer and the majority of the lecturer's audience.

I followed him myself, drifting at the periphery of the orbiting mass, shuffling my feet somewhat aimlessly, the shameless gawking about me allowing me to similarly crane my neck and gather an eyeful. It lasted only minutes, just until it became clear that he was done making a slight spectacle of himself for the evening, and that he would not be inviting everyone back to his place for cocaine and caviar. As the crowd realized the show was over, they captured a last few sullen pictures of him sequestered in the corner, talking into his phone, a pair of female bodyguards facing outward to keep intruders on his privacy at bay.

I was forced to meander away with the rest of the herd, nodding occasionally to give the impression that I might be engaged in the detailed recaps they were sharing with one another, reliving what had just happened in front of all their eyes, making it more real for themselves, showing one another the pictures they had all just taken to emphasize the absolute solidity of their brush with fame and art scandal. Returning to my perusal of the walls, I was able to use the glass face of a piece mounted on onyx tile to continue my observation surreptitiously.

I saw the conclusion of the young man's phone conversation, his apparent irritation at how it concluded, the equally irritated fashion in which he waved away all members of his entourage, the manner in which they floundered when set adrift, and the impulsiveness with which he grabbed a solitary figure near the door as he made his exit.

I'd already noted this figure. Alone but not aloof, he'd never joined the crowd when the unevenly matched debate had been engaged. Instead, he'd wandered to the desk near the lectern, the location where the gallerist conducted business, confirming sales and arranging deliveries. He'd passed in front of her desk, and, not coincidentally, I think, there was a sudden absence of one of the two RFID interrogators that had been left there to establish the absolute authenticity of Shadrach's work.

Plucking a catalogue from the hand of a thin, young, black-miniskirted woman in architect's glasses, I walked out onto the former warehouse's loading dock, face stuck between the glossy pages, reading an introduction that largely echoed what the lecturer had pronounced inside.

From that vantage I glanced above the edge of the page and watched as the famous young man took his companion by the arm and escorted him to a pig-nosed Subaru WRX and talked to him for a moment, his attractive bodyguards nearby, scanning rooflines for snipers. At the conclusion of his monologue he received some form of assent from the loner and made a beeline to an unsubtly armored Maserati Quattroporte that was soon squealing from the parking lot with one of the bodyguards at the wheel, the other in the backseat where she could throw her body across her employer's lap if called upon to do so.

By then I was opening the door of my Cadillac, having started the engine remotely, thus activating both the AC and the stereo. Inside, I waited while the companion of Parsifal K. Afronzo Jr. made a phone call, and then I followed him out the parking lot exit and along a lengthy and circuitous route to Culver City.

So it was that the lurking I'd engaged in after I had finished with Vinnie's antagonist was rewarded. The few hours I'd spent outside Denizone waiting for young Afronzo to appear, on the off chance that I might find the police officer somewhere near at hand, had borne surprising fruit. I'd not expected to stumble onto such luck, finding the young policeman at Afronzo's side. An association that confirmed the police officer was every bit as dirty as I'd suspected.