sell favors. I doubt if Lomax knows whether he works for PAC/ORD or Lloyd Percival, ultimately. You have to understand, agencies allow this to go on all the time. People know what’s happening. But they allow it. That’s the nature of the times. You go to bed with your enemies.”
“I assume you feed Lomax false information.”
“Tell you what,” he said. “Sometimes this is so much fun, I’d do it for nothing.”
“Who is Glen Selvy?”
“No idea.”
“Howard Glen Selvy?”
“Not a leaf stirs.”
“Bullshit,” she said.
“I like your smile.”
“I’m not smiling.”
“I thought that was a smile. I mistook that for a smile. Have some lemonade, why don’t you?”
“These are Vietnamese, these people you’ve got here?”
“We have some Vietnamese here, definitely.”
“That you got out just in time.”
“I’ve had hairier moments. So have they. Compared to the life most of these people have had, getting out of Saigon was on the level of an escapade.”
“Ho Chi Minh City,” she said.
“Yeah, Ho Chi Minh City. A lark with firecrackers.”
Moll nibbled on a cookie and drank some lemonade. She couldn’t shake the feeling she’d crossed an invisible frontier into another way of life. The rules were different here. Sitting in the shade. White wicker and lemonade. Ponies motionless in their small corral.
“Back that way along the road,” she said. “Radial Matrix?”
“Right.”
“Thriving, by all accounts.”
“Systems. It’s one of the areas we still excel in.”
“ ‘We’ meaning Americans.”
“Nothing but.”
“In Vietnam you were involved in drug trafficking, no?”
“We did some of that. We were a link. As I say, I’ve unlinked myself. Too much software, hardware, so on. Technology. The whole thing’s geared to electronics. There’s a neat correlation between the complexity of the hardware and the lack of genuine attachments. Devices make everyone pliant. There’s a general sponginess, a lack of conviction.”
“You had your own zoo in Vietnam.”
“Checking up on me.”
“A little,” she said.
“My pride and joy, that zoo. We got to the point where we were making exchanges with real zoos halfway around the world. We had an animal dealer from Michigan come all the way out to see our operation. I had more gibbons than I could use. I was laying off gibbons the way bookmakers lay off excess bets. I had this rare type lynx, Eurasian, almost extinct, this one variety, and we bred it successfully in captivity. I tell you what, that made my war.”
“Victory after all.”
“We won far’s I’m concerned. Revise the texts.”
“What sort of retirement plans—forgive the skeptical look.”
“Domestic bliss,” he said. “My wife’s off having a baby, matter of fact.”
“Nice.”
“I’m fifty-two years old.”
“Interesting.”
“Wife number three.”
“Not bad.”
“She’s a gook,” Mudger said.
Apron and gloves. Helicopter landing in a field. She recalled what Percival had said before his sour mash whisky slowed him to a crawl. One set of rules. Mudger’s. Nobody else gets to use them. Vietnamese in cowboy hats.
“Not that I don’t have something to fall back on,” he said.
“Aside from domestic bliss.”
“I’ve got a shop in the basement. Sometimes I go down there and work half the night. Do a little planing, a little sanding. Lock things in vises. It’s good for the soul. Punch holes in metal, do a little buffing. So anyway I got to fooling around with a small machine of my own devising that tests the hardness and content of steel. Machines that size do hardness alone, normally. I can tell you high carbon, low carbon, how much nickel or manganese. Is this boring?”
“Sort of.”
“The machine has a thing called a diamond tip penetrator. I trademarked it as the Mudger tip.”
“A little better,” she said.
“I’m building a large shop about twenty miles south of here, If things work out, I’ll be
“I assume you feed Lomax false information.”
“Tell you what,” he said. “Sometimes this is so much fun, I’d do it for nothing.”
“Who is Glen Selvy?”
“No idea.”
“Howard Glen Selvy?”
“Not a leaf stirs.”
“Bullshit,” she said.
“I like your smile.”
“I’m not smiling.”
“I thought that was a smile. I mistook that for a smile. Have some lemonade, why don’t you?”
“These are Vietnamese, these people you’ve got here?”
“We have some Vietnamese here, definitely.”
“That you got out just in time.”
“I’ve had hairier moments. So have they. Compared to the life most of these people have had, getting out of Saigon was on the level of an escapade.”
“Ho Chi Minh City,” she said.
“Yeah, Ho Chi Minh City. A lark with firecrackers.”
Moll nibbled on a cookie and drank some lemonade. She couldn’t shake the feeling she’d crossed an invisible frontier into another way of life. The rules were different here. Sitting in the shade. White wicker and lemonade. Ponies motionless in their small corral.
“Back that way along the road,” she said. “Radial Matrix?”
“Right.”
“Thriving, by all accounts.”
“Systems. It’s one of the areas we still excel in.”
“ ‘We’ meaning Americans.”
“Nothing but.”
“In Vietnam you were involved in drug trafficking, no?”
“We did some of that. We were a link. As I say, I’ve unlinked myself. Too much software, hardware, so on. Technology. The whole thing’s geared to electronics. There’s a neat correlation between the complexity of the hardware and the lack of genuine attachments. Devices make everyone pliant. There’s a general sponginess, a lack of conviction.”
“You had your own zoo in Vietnam.”
“Checking up on me.”
“A little,” she said.
“My pride and joy, that zoo. We got to the point where we were making exchanges with real zoos halfway around the world. We had an animal dealer from Michigan come all the way out to see our operation. I had more gibbons than I could use. I was laying off gibbons the way bookmakers lay off excess bets. I had this rare type lynx, Eurasian, almost extinct, this one variety, and we bred it successfully in captivity. I tell you what, that made my war.”
“Victory after all.”
“We won far’s I’m concerned. Revise the texts.”
“What sort of retirement plans—forgive the skeptical look.”
“Domestic bliss,” he said. “My wife’s off having a baby, matter of fact.”
“Nice.”
“I’m fifty-two years old.”
“Interesting.”
“Wife number three.”
“Not bad.”
“She’s a gook,” Mudger said.
Apron and gloves. Helicopter landing in a field. She recalled what Percival had said before his sour mash whisky slowed him to a crawl. One set of rules. Mudger’s. Nobody else gets to use them. Vietnamese in cowboy hats.
“Not that I don’t have something to fall back on,” he said.
“Aside from domestic bliss.”
“I’ve got a shop in the basement. Sometimes I go down there and work half the night. Do a little planing, a little sanding. Lock things in vises. It’s good for the soul. Punch holes in metal, do a little buffing. So anyway I got to fooling around with a small machine of my own devising that tests the hardness and content of steel. Machines that size do hardness alone, normally. I can tell you high carbon, low carbon, how much nickel or manganese. Is this boring?”
“Sort of.”
“The machine has a thing called a diamond tip penetrator. I trademarked it as the Mudger tip.”
“A little better,” she said.
“I’m building a large shop about twenty miles south of here, If things work out, I’ll be
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