Martin Amis - Night Train

Well, I thought: That isn’t it. Just then Denziger looked at his watch with what seemed like irritation or anxiety. I said quickly,

“The revolution you talked about. Of consciousness. Would there be casualties?

I heard the door open. A broad in a black sweatsuit was standing there, making a phone call. When I turned again Denziger was looking at me. He said,

“I guess it wouldn’t neccessarily be bloodless. I have to talk to Hawaii now.

“Yeah. Well I’m in no hurry. I’m going to smoke a cigarette out on the steps there. Maybe if you get a moment you’ll walk me to my car.”

And I reached for the tape recorder and keyed the Pause.

With my arms folded to promote warmth and thought, I stood on the steps, looking at the quality of life. Jennifer’s life. Jennifer’s life. The fauna of early spring—birds, squirrels, even rabbits. And the agitated physicists—the little dweebs and nerds and wonks. A white sky giving way to pixels of blue, and containing both sun and moon, which she knew all about. Yes, and Trader, on the other side of the green hill. I could get used to this.

The naked-eye universe. The “seeing.” The eighty-billion-year heartbeat. On the night she died, the sky was so clear, the seeing was so clear—but the naked eye isn’t good enough and needs assistance... In her bedroom on the evening of March fourth Jennifer Rockwell conducted an experiment with time. She took fifty years and squeezed them into a few seconds. In moments of extreme crisis, time slows anyway: Calm chemicals come from the brain to the body, to help it through to the other side. How slowly time would have passed. She must have felt it. Jennifer must have felt it—the eighty-billion-year heartbeat.

Students straggled by. No, I don’t have to take a test tomorrow morning. I’m done with being tested. Aren’t I? Then why do I feel like I feel? Is Jennifer testing me? Is that what she’s doing—setting me a test? The terrible thing inside of me is growing stronger. I swear to Christ, I almost feel pregnant. The terrible thing inside of me is alive and well, and growing stronger.

Blinking with his whole forehead, Bax Denziger staggered out into the light. He waved, approached—we fell into step. Without any prompting he said,

“I dreamt about you last night.”

And I just said, “You did, huh?”

“I dreamt about this. And you know what I said? I said, ‘Arrest me.’ “

“Why would you say that, Bax?”

“Listen. The week before she died, for the first time ever Jennifer fucked up. She fucked up on the job. Big.”

I waited.

He sighed and said, “I had her defending some distances in M101. Princeton were kicking our butt so bad—they were killing us. Let me keep it simple. The plate density scan gives you a bunch of numbers, millions of them, which go into the computer to be compared and calibrated against the algorithms. The—”

Stop, I said. The more you’re telling me, the less I understand. Give me the upshot.

“She changed—she changed the program. I see the reductions on Monday morning and I’m like ‘Yes.’ I’d been praying for data half that strong. I look again and I see it’s all bullshit. The velocities, the metallicities—she’d changed all the values. And blown a month’s work. I was up there nude against Princeton. Without a stitch on.”

“Not an accident, you’re saying. Not an honest mistake.”

“No. It was like malicious. Get this. When Miriam phoned and told me, my first reaction was relief. Now I won’t have to kill her when she comes in. And then just awful, awful guilt. Mike, it’s been bleeding me white. I mean, am I that brutal? Did she fear my anger that much?”

By now we were in the lot and skirting around the unmarked. I’d fished my keys from my pants. Denziger looked as though mathematics were happening to him right then and there. As though math were happening to him: He looked subtracted, with much of his force of life, and his IQ, suddenly taken away.

“It’s just a single element. In a pattern of egression,” I said, looking to give him comfort with something that sounded technical. “You know Trader?”

“Sure I know him. Trader is a friend of mine.”

“You tell him about Jennifer’s stunt?”

“Stunt? No, not yet. But let me tell you something about Trader Faulkner. He’s going to survive this. It’ll take years, but he’ll survive this. From what I gather it’s uh, Tom Rockwell who has the biggest problem here. Trader’s as strong as an ox but he’s also a philosopher of science. He lives with unanswered questions. Tom’s going to want something neat. Something that...”

“Measures up.”

“Measures up.” As I climbed into the car he gave a bushy frown and said, “That was a good joke she played on me. I keep getting into these professional brawls because my preferences are too strong. She always said I took the universe much too personally.”

Tom’s going to want something that measures up. And again that thought: She was a cop’s daughter. This has to matter. How?

The Mallard is the best hotel in town, or it certainly thinks it is. I know the Mallard well, because I’ve always had a weakness (what’s wrong with me?) for the twenty-dollar cocktail. And for the twenty-cent cocktail, too. But I never resented the extra: It’s worth it for the atmosphere. A double Johnny Black in elegant surroundings, with a sleepy-looking cocksucker, in a white tux, slumped over the baby grand: That was my idea of fun. Fortunately I never came in here when I was really smashed. For a two-day climb, give me York’s or Dreeley’s on Division. Give me a long string of dives on Battery. The Mallard’s the stone mansion in Orchard Square. Inside it’s all wooden panels and corporate gloom. Recently refurbished. A high-tech shrine to Great Britain. And with a lot of duck shit everywhere you look. Prints, models, lures—decoys. Those little carved quack-quacks, which have no value except rarity, sell for tens of thousands. I got there early, equipped with Silvera’s literature on Arn Debs. I sat at a table and ordered a Virgin Mary, heavy on the spice.

Arn Debs subscribes to Business Week, Time, and Playboy. Naturally I’m thinking: Why did Jennifer give him my number? Arn Debs drives a Trans Am and carries a $7,000 limit on his MasterCard. Right now I have to assume that she wanted me to cover or middle for her—which I guess I would have gone ahead and done. Arn Debs has season tickets to the Dallas Cowboys. Probably I’d cover for any woman on earth, in principle—with one exception. Arn Debs rents action movies by the shitload. With one exception: Jennifer’s mother. Arn Debs is a registered Republican. Nobody seems to worry too much about Miriam: Maybe we assume that, with her background, catastrophe is all wired in. Arn Debs wears a bridge from eyetooth to eyetooth. Here’s another read: Jennifer gave him my number because he was bothering her and she wanted me to roust him. Arn Debs has three criminal convictions. Two are for mail fraud: These are out of Texas. One is for Aggravated Assault: This rap goes way back—to when he was just an up-country boy.

Jennifer screwing up on the job: This could play two ways. A rush of blood, maybe. Or a kind of personal inducement. Giving her one more reason not to see Monday...

Now wait a minute. The Decoy Room was a zoo when I walked in here. But eight o’clock has come and gone. And I’m thinking, No: It’s that fucking room-emptier at the near end of the bar. How could I miss the guy? I had him d.o.b.’d at 1/25/47. Six-three. Two hundred and twenty. Red hair. I guess I just couldn’t feature it: Him and Jennifer, in any connection. And I’d been watching him, too. There was no escaping Arn Debs. Until around eight fifteen he was sticking to beer—out of deference to his boner. Then he despaired and switched to scotch. Now he’s swelling and swearing and sneering at the waitresses. And boring the barman blind: Asking the kid about his love life, his “prowess,” as if it’s the feminine of prow. Jesus, aren’t drunks a drag? Barmen know all about bores and boredom. It’s their job. They can’t walk away.