Jack O'Connell - Wireless

Hannah remembers her father pulling her past the loading door, but not before a burst of nausea exploded through her stomach and something like a mix of fear and pity and guilt and confusion broke on her neck and arms and legs. She remembers her father tried to start talking again, to pick up their conversation as if it had never been interrupted. And Hannah loved him for his effort, but resented him for not realizing its futility, for not accepting that there was no way to steal back the vision she’d just been given. And trying to was something like a loving insult.

She advances toward the three figures. A small table lamp is turned on and things become clearer. She sees a large man sprawled on a ratty, black leather couch. He’s beefy-looking but not fat or flabby, a full face with a conspicuous dark mole angled out below his right nostril and above his bushy Zapata mustache. She’d place him in his mid-forties. Traces of gray filter through his closely cropped dark hair. His eyebrows are still completely black and very thick, his forehead lined with permanent creases. He’s got deep, purplish circles under his eyes that might betray a tendency to insomnia or maybe a vitamin deficiency, but the eyes themselves are stunningly vivid, even in this poor light, completely alive and focused on her. Her first impression is of a patriarchal presence that has somehow solidified before its time. He projects the bearing of a wise grandfather without the number of years to account for it. And he dresses young — a stylish black V-neck sweater, the sleeves pushed up on his arms, and a pair of gray pleated pants with cuffed legs.

There’s a small monkey, like an organ grinder’s monkey, lying prone on the man’s shoulder, asleep and nuzzling near his neck. There’s an old-fashioned black round-topped doctor’s bag on the couch next to him, open, revealing dozens of plastic vials. He’s chewing on the end of a red felt-tip pen. Open in his lap is a newspaper Hannah’s not familiar with— Pacific Rim Journal . Various sections of newsprint are corralled with red circles.

Next to the man is a small, dark woman wearing royal-blue spandex bicycle pants and a leather bra with intricate stitching that looks somewhat like a harness. The outfit shows off an assortment of perfectly toned muscles. Her face is all cheekbones and lips. Hannah thinks the woman could make a fortune as a model, a pouty, postmodern mannequin sneering at a camera lens while seated on the hood of some glitzy sports car. She has a waterfall of black wiry hair that’s been pulled back and tied into a loose ponytail. Her function seems to have something to do with the silver IV pole next to the couch. The pole supports a clear plastic bag that hangs from a small S-shaped hook. The bag is filled with a brownish solution that’s dripping at scheduled intervals into a plastic vein that, in turn, is plugged into the man’s arm.

Sitting behind the couch is the projectionist, a younger, leaner version of the patriarch. He’s hunched on a stool, working with a rag, silently cleaning a sawed-off shotgun that rests next to the movie projector on a rickety wooden worktable. He’s handsome in a threatening, predatory kind of way — huge eyes, brown to the point of blackness, a square jaw, clean-shaven, an alertness to his bearing. His hair looks like it may have once been as wiry as the woman’s, but he seems to have had it straightened, an old-time conk job. There’s a short, fat scar on the side of his neck.

Spray-painted on the wall behind the worktable are huge block letters of neon scarlet that spell out Welcome to the Last Wave . Hannah thinks it’s like a message you’d read entering the fun-house ride at some malign traveling carnival.

The man caps the felt pen, slides it behind his right ear, takes a breath, and says, “Thank you for dropping by, Detective Shaw.”

Hannah gives a formal nod and says, “Thanks for having me, Mr. Iguaran.” She head-motions toward the graffiti and adds, “You’ve got to find yourself a new designer.”

Iguaran makes a slight shrug. “At this moment in the Park’s history, having the ability to process graffiti is handier than having a fax machine. But that will change. Please,” he says, gesturing to the couch, “have a seat.”

Hannah looks at the projectionist and says, “Thanks, but I’ll stand.”

Iguaran nods. “However you feel comfortable. Would you like a drink?”

She gestures to the IV flow. “Thanks, but chemo isn’t on my diet these days.”

“Platelets and washed cells,” Iguaran says with a huge grin as if he’s just shown her snapshots of his children. “From the wombs of newborn lambs. Or is it the uterus? Imported from Switzerland. They breed them on a compound outside of Guarda. Costs me a fortune. And then there are the courier charges. Your FDA can be so provincial.”

“I’m sure.”

“But I must say I’ve never felt better. I’ve got the reflexes of a twenty-year-old. Though I do get chills when I pass by angora.”

Hannah can’t suppress a smile and says, “Well, there are side effects to every cocktail.”

Iguaran takes some air in through a clogged nose and says, “Forgive my rudeness.” He extends a hand to the woman and says, “This is Ursula, my administrative assistant. And this,” turning his head to look at the projectionist, “is my son, Nabo.”

Hannah nods to both of them without saying a word and they respond in kind. There’s some awkward silence, then Hannah makes an exaggerated turn from side to side and says, “So the abattoir is your place now.”

“We passed papers a month ago. Still haven’t completely moved in.”

“I thought you just liked a primitive look.”

Iguaran slaps his leg, too hard. “I was hoping you’d have a sense of humor. You haven’t disappointed me. Wonderful. Very good.” He looks up toward the ceiling and says, “I bought it for the space. Plenty of room to move around here. Very spacious for a starter home—”

“Meaning you’re already planning another move?” Hannah interrupts. “To the Hotel Penumbra, maybe?”

Iguaran juts out his jaw and gives a slow-motion headshake that says no . “You Yankees,” he says, “always so anxious to get straight to business.”

“I’m not a Yankee,” Hannah says, quietly but definitively.

Iguaran shrugs again and mumbles, “Have it your way,” then picks his voice up and continues. “I have no interest in acquiring the Penumbra. For me, it will always hold the spirit of Cortez. A man has to put his own character onto a building. You wait two years, maybe eighteen months. Then come back to the abattoir. It will be the country of Iguaran. Besides, the word is the Loftus boys are looking at the Penumbra.”

Now Hannah shakes her head, “I don’t think so. Where’s the Irish margin? Their population base in the Park is minimal except for the Castlebar Road Boys. And they’re real uneasy about that connection. Old man Loftus is too legitimate to step back into the Park. And the kids are too eccentric. They don’t want the crudities enough. They don’t revel in it. They’re media-heads—”

Iguaran smiles like a smug lawyer or chess player and cuts her off. “I would agree.” He pauses, his mouth still open, clear that there’s more to come, stopping just for effect until it seems like the silence of the huge building will take shape, metamorphose into some jungle monster from the collective imagination of the whole third world, and come at this white woman who holds a badge and a gun. Finally, Iguaran says, “So you see I’m the logical choice to fill the vacuum.”

This is what Hannah expected but still feared to hear. She says, “Uncle Chak would disagree with that conclusion.”

“Please,” Iguaran says, mock-offended, “let’s not turn this conversation into a farce. The Cambodian is totally regressive. Chak is a tribal mentality in a global net. He’s encouraging his men to speak Khmer, for God’s sake. Tell me something, Detective. If Dr. Cheng himself were forced to choose between me and Chak, racial allegiances standing, who do you think he’d pick?”