One of Us

Great going.

But it had evidently worked, because for the time being I was back. I started the car and pulled carefully back onto the road, after a quick mental check to make sure I was pointing in the right direction. Then I tore the filter off a Kim, lit her up, and headed South.

I only passed one other car along the way, which was good, because it meant I could drive down the middle of the road and stay as far as possible from the precipitous drops which line half the route. This left me free to do a kind of internal inventory, and to start panicking about that instead. Most of the last six hours were missing, along with a number of words and facts. I could recall where I lived, for example – on the tenth floor of The Falkland, one of Griffith's livelier apartment blocks – but not the room number. It simply wasn't available to me. Presumably I'd remember by sight: I hoped so, because all my stuff was in there and otherwise I'd have nothing to wear.

I could remember Laura Reynolds' name, and what she'd done to me. She'd evidently been with me for some of the journey down, in spirit at least: it must have been her who bought the cigarettes, though me who opened the pack. I didn't really know what she looked like, only how she appeared to herself, and I had no idea where she was. I'd probably had a good reason for heading for Ensenada, or at least a reason of some kind – assuming, of course, that it had been me who made the decision. Either way, now I was here it seemed I might as well go on.

I made good time, only having to stop once, while a herd of coffee machines crossed the road in front of me. I read somewhere that they often make their way down to Mexico. I can't see why that would be so, but there was certainly a hell of a lot of them. They came down off the hill in silence, trooped across the road in a protective huddle, and then headed off down the slope in an orderly line, searching for a home, or food, or maybe even some coffee beans.

I reached Ensenada just after midnight, and slept in the car on the outskirts of town. I dreamed of a silver sedan and men with lights behind their heads, but the message was confused and frantic, fear dancing through an internal landscape lined with doors that wouldn't open.

When I woke up more of my head was back in place, and I got it together to contact Stratten, patching the call through my hacker's network so it looked like it came from LA. I said I had a migraine and wouldn't be able to work for a couple days. I don't think he believed me, but he didn't call me on it. I spent the rest of the day fruitlessly searching taco stands and crumbling hotels, or driving aimlessly down rotting streets. By the evening this had led me to an inescapable conclusion.

She wasn't here.

From Housson's I headed straight for the street where I'd left the car. In late afternoon this particular area behind the tourist drag had seemed charmingly authentic. By mid-evening it resembled a do-it-yourself mugging emporium. Knots of alarming locals stood and stared as I passed, their feet wet from the pools of beer, urine or blood which flowed from each of the bars, but I made it back to the car in one piece. It was parked down a cul-de-sac, away from prying eyes, and it was only as I pulled my keys from out of my pocket that I realized shadows were moving on the other side of the street. The light was too patchy for me to tell who it might be, but I didn't want to meet them either way. I'm like that. Not very sociable.

Three men were soon distinguishable, heading towards me. They weren't hurrying, but that wasn't reassuring. Particularly when the glint of a tarnished button confirmed what I already suspected. Cops. Or the local equivalent, which was even worse. Could be they were just out walking their wallets, shaking down the bars; could be they'd just spotted a tourista and wanted to shake me down instead.

Or it could be that their colleagues outside Housson's had passed word to them that someone suspicious had just been hounded out of the bar by a lunatic timepiece, someone whose name had been clearly articulated. There was no reason that name should mean anything to anyone, not unless stuff had happened back in LA that I didn't know about, but I wasn't going to take any chances. I quietly opened the car door and waited, listening to the sound of their boots scuffing on the ragged road surface.

‘Hi,’ I said steadily. ‘What can I do for you guys?’

They didn't reply, but merely looked me up and down, as is the wont of such people. The third cop hung back a little, casting a glance at the licence plate of my car.

‘It's mine,’ I said. ‘The papers are in the glove compartment.’

Too late I remembered what was next to the papers and under a map. A gun. It was mine, licensed, legal – with a serial number and everything – but it would still be a very bad thing to have them find. The Baja Peninsula isn't bandit territory, but it's heading that way. Twenty years ago it had looked as if fleeing Hong Kong money might claw it up into respectability, but the cash had kept on moving, and now the dark country was taking over again, seeping down from the hills and turning the eyes of the people inwards. The cops are very keen that it's them pointing the guns at people, not the other way round.

‘Mr Thompson?’ the middle cop said. I tightened my grip on the door.

‘Yes,’ I replied. There was no point in lying. Any part of my body had it stamped there in amino acids. ‘How'd you guess? I just look like a Thompson, or what?’

‘Someone who sounds like you just had a little trouble in Housson's,’ he said, something that wasn't really a smile moving his lips. ‘With a clock.’

‘Well you know how it is.’ I shrugged. ‘They get on your nerves occasionally.’

‘I couldn't afford such a thing,’ the middle cop said. ‘Mine still runs on batteries.’

‘Probably works properly, then,’ I said, trying to be comradely. ‘And you don't have to feed it.’

‘What are you doing in Ensenada?’ the second policeman asked abruptly.

‘Holiday,’ I said. ‘Few days off work.’

‘What work?’

‘Bar work.’ Used to be true. I've done most things at one time or another. If they wanted to test me on pouring beer and making change they were welcome to it.

They all nodded together. Little, uninterested nods. The fact that this was all so chummy should have made me more relaxed. It didn't. It made me feel tense. No-one had asked me for money. No-one had asked for my papers. No-one was hunting through the cavities of my car for drugs.

So what were they doing? I hadn't done anything, after all. Not really.

Then I heard it. Very quietly at first, the sound of a car approaching in another street. Nothing exceptional about that, of course: I'm familiar with the internal combustion engine and its role in contemporary society. But I couldn't help noticing that the cop in the middle, the one who appeared to be leading this crew, glanced towards the end of the block. I followed his eyes.

Initially there was nothing to see except tourist couples walking hand in hand across the intersection, their blurred voices calling as they pointed out souvenirs to each other. For a moment I had a flash of the first time I came to Ensenada, many years ago. I remembered realizing that every bangle and every rug, every copyright infringement and Day of the Dead vignette, had been stamped out somewhere in a factory and that no-one here was selling anything unique or genuine. Realizing that, and not caring. Spending days eating fish tacos at two for a dollar, loaded high with fixings and chilli, down by the fish market where the world's most disreputable pelicans fought for scraps in a flurry of brown feathers. Cruising in the late afternoon, Country on the car stereo and Indian kids on every street corner, selling subcontracted chiclets to support their mothers' habits. And nights of shadows and distant shouting, patterns of light on water and wood fires in run-down chalets; cold breezes on the rocks at the waterfront, the warmth of someone who loved me.

That's why I used to come back here. To remember those times, and the person I was when they happened.

But the car which slowly moved into position wasn't a beat-up old Ford, and there was no-one in it that I knew. It was a squad car, and that's what the cops around me had been waiting for. It was a trap, either because they knew who I was, or because it was a slow night and they just felt like it. Either way, it was time to go.

I braced my hands against the car door and whipped it out quickly, catching two of the cops in the stomach and sending them stumbling painfully backwards. The remaining cop scrabbled for his holster but I swung a kick at his hands, smacking into his wrist and sending the gun skittering along the pavement. It had been a big night for kicking. Lucky I kept in practice.

The cops in the car down the end saw what was happening, and the vehicle leapt up the street towards me. I jammed the key in the ignition and had my own car moving before I'd even shut the door. There were shouts from the cops behind as I yanked the car round in a tight bend, scattering grit like a line of machine-gun fire, heading straight for the police vehicle.

I kept the car on course, flooring the pedal, but I knew I was going to have to turn. You don't play chicken with the Mexican police. They tend to win. I caught glimpses of tourists watching as I hammered down the road, their mouths falling open as they realized there was local colour in prospect and that the colour was likely to be red.

In the front, the faces of two cops stared back at me through their windshield as they got closer and closer. The passenger looked a little nervous, but one glance at the driver told me what I already knew. If there was going to be a domesticated egg-producing squawker in this confrontation, it sure as hell wasn't going to be him.

At the last minute I yanked the wheel to the right and went caroming off down a side street, narrowly avoiding rolling the car into a storefront. People scattered in all directions as I cursed my luck and tried to work out what I was going to do next. Behind me I heard the scream of tyres as the cops performed an inaccurate U-turn, cracking a few parked cars in the process. I hope everyone had the proper insurance. It's a false economy not to, you know, and there's a place about fifty yards from the border where you almost believe that what you're being sold is worth something. I forget the name, but check it out.

There weren't that many options available to me – you can either leave Ensenada up the coast or down. I figured on going up, but I had to try to convince the cops I was heading the other way. I made a series of hard turns towards the southern end of town – ignoring lights, screaming over the main drag at seventy and in general displaying very little concern for the finer points of road safety. A couple of cars ended up swerving onto the pavement, the drivers shouting after me before they'd even come to a halt. I could see their point, but didn't stop to discuss it.

After a few hectic minutes I couldn't see anyone following me in the mirror, so I made a sudden left and slowed the car right down, pulling in to park neatly between a couple of battered trucks by the side of the road. I edged far enough forward that I could see the crossroads, and then killed the engine. Heart thumping, I waited.

It worked. People don't really expect you to park in the middle of a car chase. They sort of assume you'll keep on driving. After a few seconds I saw the police car go flying over the intersection, but I stayed put a little while longer, wiping the sweat off my palms onto my jeans.

Then I very sedately reversed out of the space and pootled off up the road.

On the way back to the border I tried to call a friend of mine in the Net, a guy called Quat, but there was no reply. I left a message for him to get in touch with me as soon as possible, and then just concentrated on not driving into the sea. I was pretty calm by then, telling myself the Mexican cops had just been fishing, rousting a conspicuous Americano for kicks.

Just outside Tijuana I stopped to get some gas from a run-down place by the side of the road. I could have waited until I got the other side of the border, but the station looked like it needed the business. While the guy was gleefully filling my car up I took the opportunity to throw the remaining packets of Kims in the trash, and get some proper cigarettes at contraband prices.

I also elected to make use of their men's room, which was a questionable decision. The gas station claimed to be under new management, but the toilets were evidently still under some old management, or more probably governed by an organization which predated the concept of management altogether. Possibly the Spanish Inquisition. The smell was bracing, to say the least. Both of the urinals had been smashed, and one of the cubicles appeared to be where the local horses came when they needed to empty their backs. If so, someone needed to introduce them to the concept of toilet paper, and explain where exactly they should sit.

The remaining cubicle was relatively bearable, and I locked myself in and set about what I had to do. My mind was on other things, like what the hell I was going to do when I got back home, when I heard a knock on the door.

‘I'll be out in a minute,’ I said, zipping myself back up. Maybe the guy was just worried he wasn't going to get paid.

There was no answer. I was groping through the same sentence in pidgin Spanish when suddenly I realized it wouldn't be the gas jockey. He had my car keys. I wasn't going anywhere without them.

The knock came again, louder this time.

I looked quickly around, but there was no way out of the cubicle – except, of course, through the door. There never is. Take it from me, if you're ever on the run, a toilet cubicle isn't a great place to hide. They're designed with very little functional flexibility.

‘Who is it?’ I asked. There was no answer.

I had my gun with me, but that was no answer either. I'd like to think I've grown up, but it could just be that I've got more frightened. I was never a big one for firearms, and encouraging situations in which I might get my head splattered across walls had even less appeal than it used to. The gun's little more than a souvenir, and I haven't fired it in anger in four years. I've fired it in boredom, as my old CD player would testify, but that's not really enough. You have to keep in practice at senseless violence, otherwise you forget the point.

Extreme politeness was the only sensible course of action.

So I pulled the gun out, yanked open the door and screamed at whoever was there to get the fuck face down on the floor.

The room was empty. Just dirty walls and the sound of three taps dripping out of unison.

I blinked, and swivelled my head both ways round the room. Still no-one. My eyes prickled and stung.

‘Hi Hap,’ said a voice, from lower than I would have expected. I slowly tilted my head that way, bringing the gun down with my gaze.

The alarm clock waved up at me. It looked tired, and was spattered with mud.

I lost it.

‘Okay, you fuck,’ I shouted hysterically, ‘this is it. Now I'm finally going to blow you apart.’

‘Hap, you don't want to do that …’

‘Yes, I do.’

The clock backed rapidly towards the door. ‘You don't. You really don't.’

‘Give me one good reason,’ I yelled, racking a shell up into the breech and knowing that nothing the machine could come up with would be enough. By now we were back out in the lot, and I was aware of the gas guy standing by the car gaping at us, a smile freezing on his face. Maybe it wasn't fair to take the situation out on a clock, but I didn't care. It was the only potential victim around apart from me, and I was bigger than it was. I was also fading it big time. My temples felt like they were full of ice, and a patch of vision in my right eye was turning grey.

The clock knew that time was running out, and spoke very quickly. ‘I was trying to tell you something down in that smelly place. Something important.’

I aimed right at the AM/PM indicator. ‘Like what? That I have a haircut booked at four?’

‘That I'm good at some things. Like finding people. I found you, didn't I?’

Finger on the trigger, one twitch away from sending the clock to oblivion, I hesitated. ‘So? What are you saying?’

‘I know where she is.’

Two

I got into it the same way as most people, I guess. By accident.

It was a year and a half ago. I was staying the night in Jacksonville, mainly because I didn't have anyplace else to be. At the time it seemed like whenever I couldn't find a road to take me anywhere new, I wound up back in that city, like a yo-yo bouncing back to the hand that threw it away in the first place. I was planning on getting out of Florida the next day, and after my ride set me down I headed for the blocks round the bus station, where everything costs less. Last time I'd worked had been two weeks ago, at a bar down near Cresota Beach, where I grew up. They didn't like the way I talked to the customers. I didn't care for their attitude towards pay and working conditions. It had been a brief relationship.

I walked the streets until I found a place going by the inspiring and lyrical name of ‘Pete's Rooms’. The guy behind the desk was wearing one of the worst shirts I've ever seen, like a painting of a road accident done by someone who had no talent but an awful lot of paint to use up. I didn't ask him if he was Pete, but it seemed a fair assumption. He looked like a Pete. The rate was fifteen dollars a night, Net access in every room. Very reasonable – yet the shirt, unappealing though it was, looked like it had been made on purpose. Maybe I should have thought about that, but it was late and I couldn't be bothered.

My room was on the fourth floor and small, and the air smelled like it had been there since before I was born. I pulled something to drink from my bag, and dragged the room's one tatty chair over to the window. Outside was a fire escape the rats were probably afraid of using, and below that just yellow lights and noise.

I leaned out into humid night and watched people walking up and down the street. You see them in every big city, mangy dogs sniffing for a trail their instincts tell them must start around here someplace. Some people believe in God, or UFOs: others that just round a corner will be the first step on a road towards money, or drugs, or whatever Holy Grail they're programmed for. I wished them well, but not with much hope or enthusiasm. I'd tried most types of MAKE $$$ FAST!!! schemes by then, and they had got me precisely nowhere. Roads that begin just around corners have a tendency to lead you right back to where you started.

Though I grew up in Florida, I'd spent most of the previous decade on the West Coast, and I missed it. For the time being I couldn't go back, which left me with nowhere in particular to be. It felt like everything had ground to a halt, as if it would take something pretty major to get my life started up again. Reincarnation, maybe. It had felt that way before, but not quite so bleakly. It was the kind of situation that could get you down.

So I lay on the bed and went to sleep.

I woke up early the next morning, feeling strange. Spacey. Hollow-stomached, and as if someone had put little scratchy balls of crumpled paper inside my eyes. My watch said it was seven o'clock, which didn't make sense. The only time I see seven a.m. is when I've been awake straight through.

Then I realized an alarm was going off, and saw that the console in the bedside table was flashing. ‘Message’ it said. I screwed my eyes up tight and looked at it again. It still said I had a message. I hit the receive button. The screen went blank for a moment, and then fed up some text.

‘You could have earned $367.77 last night,’ it read. ‘To learn more, come by 135 Highwater today. Quote reference PR/43.’

Then it spat out a map. I picked it up; squinted at it.

$367.77 is a lot of nights' bar tending.

I changed my shirt and left the hotel.

By the time I reached Highwater I was already losing interest. My head felt fuzzy and dry, as if I'd spent all night doing math in my sleep. A big part of me just wanted to score breakfast somewhere and go sit on a bus, watch the sun haze on window panels until I was somewhere else.

But I didn't. I have a kind of shambling momentum, once I'm started. I followed the streets on the map, surprised to find myself getting closer to the business district. The kind of people who spam consoles in cheap hotels generally work out of virtual offices, but Highwater was a wide road with a lot of grown-up buildings on either side. 135 itself was a mountain of black plate glass, with a revolving door at the bottom. Unlike many of the other buildings I'd passed, it didn't have exterior videowalls extolling with tiresome thoroughness the virtues and success of the people who toiled within. It just sat there, not giving anything away. I went in, as much as anything just to find some shade.

The lobby was similarly uncommunicative, and likewise decked out all in black. It was like they'd acquired a job lot of the colour from somewhere and were eager to use it up. I walked across the marble floor to a desk at the far end, my heels tapping in the cool silence. A woman sat there in a pool of yellow light, looking at me with a raised eyebrow.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked, her tone making it clear she thought it was unlikely.

‘I was told to come here and quote a reference.’

I speak better than I look. Her face didn't light up or anything, but she tapped a button on her keyboard and turned her eyes to the screen. ‘And that is?’

I told her, and she scrolled down through some list for a while. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Here's how it is. Two options. The first is I give you $171.39, and you go away with no further obligation. The second is that you take the elevator on the right and go up to the 34th floor, where Mr Stratten will meet with you presently.’

‘And you arrive at $171.39 how, exactly?’

‘Your potential earnings less a twenty-five-dollar handling fee, divided by two and rounded up to the nearest cent.’

‘How come I only get half the money?’

‘Because you're not on contract. You go up and meet Mr Stratten, maybe that will change.’

‘And in that case I get the full $367?’

She winked. ‘You're kind of bright, aren't you?’

The elevator was very pleasant. Tinted mirrors, low lights; quiet, leisurely. It spoke of money, and lots of it. Not much happened during the journey.

When the doors opened I found myself faced with a corridor. A large chrome sign on the wall said ‘REMtemps’, in a suitably soul-destroying typeface. Underneath it said, ‘Sleep Tight. Sleep Right.’ I walked the way the sign pointed and ended up at another reception desk. The girl had a badge which said she was Sabrina, and her hair was done up in a weirdly complex manner, doubtless the result of several hours of some asswipe stylist's attention.

I'd thought the girl downstairs was a top-flight patronizer, but compared to Sabrina she was servility itself. Sabrina's manner suggested I was some kind of lower-echelon vermin: lower than a rat, for sure, maybe on a par with a particularly ill-favoured vole, and after thirty seconds with her I felt the bacteria in my stomach start to join in sneering at me. She told me to take a seat, but I didn't. Partly to annoy her, but mainly because I hate sitting in receptions. I read somewhere it puts you in a subordinate position right off the bat. I'm great at the pre-hiring tactics – it's just a shame it goes to pieces afterwards.

‘Mr Thompson, good morning. I'm Stratten.’

I turned to see a man standing behind me, hand held out. He had a strong face, black hair starting to silver on the temples. Like any other tall middle-aged guy in a sober suit, but more polished: as if he was a release-standard human instead of the beta versions you normally see wandering around. His hand was firm and dry, as was his smile.