Holy Fire - Bruce Sterling [130]
Once she had gone into the rag trade, Bruno became even more useful. Sometimes she had trouble from buyers and suppliers. If he happened to feel like it, Bruno would show up from out of town and have a little word with the offending parties. This never failed to effect radical improvement.
Sometimes Bruno would slap her around a little. This was only to be expected from a man who was perfectly capable of putting her enemies into cement. Not that Bruno had actually murdered anyone for Therese. If he had, he wouldn’t have told her about it anyway. “It isn’t that he hits you,” Therese explained. “He hits you so you do what he wants. He’s the man, he’s the boss, he’s the top. Sometimes he makes you do what he wants. That’s what he is.”
“This is seriously bad,” Maya said.
Therese tossed her head irritably. “Did you think every criminal in Europe was like your loser boyfriend Jimmy the pickpocket? Bruno is a soldier! He’s a boss.”
“What happened to Jimmy?” Maya said. “I haven’t thought about him in such a long time.”
“Oh, they caught him,” Therese said. “Jimmy was always stupid. They arrested him. They did a laundry job on his head.”
“Oh, no,” Maya said. “Poor Ulrich. Did it change his behavior much?”
“Totally,” Therese said gloomily. “He used to steal purses from tourist women. Now he fills purses with useful goods and gives them to tourist women when they’re not looking.”
“Well, it’s a good sign that they let him keep his anarchist political convictions.”
“Oh, the polity, they fuss so much about behavior mod,” said Therese. “They catch some nasty creep like Jimmy who ought to be dropped off a bridge, and every civil libertarian in the world starts whining on the net. Really, bourgeois people have no sense at all.”
“So what’s the plan with Bruno?”
“We’re going to drive into the Black Forest tomorrow. He’s going to kill himself. I’m going to bury him in a secret place where no one will ever know. That’s our bargain. That’s our secret and private arrangement.”
“Young lady, you’re not supposed to bury any lovers until you are very, very old.”
“I’ve always been so precocious, it always gets me into trouble.” Therese sighed. “Will you come with me tomorrow? Please?”
“Look, you can’t ask that of me. If you think I can handle a sick and desperate man who’s bent on suicide, well—” She hesitated. “Well, actually, I’d probably be better at that than anyone else you know.”
“You’re so good to me, Maya. I knew you would help me. I knew somehow, the moment that I saw you, that you were someone very special.” Therese stood up. She was much happier now. “I have to go back and sleep with Bruno now. I promised I’d stay all night.”
“A promise is a promise, I guess.”
Therese looked around the deserted bar. “It’s late, it’s so strange and lonely here.… Do you want to come in and sleep with him with me?”
“I might not mind it all that much really,” Maya said, “but I hardly see how that’s going to help.”
She met Bruno for the first time at ten in the morning. She was astonished by Bruno’s uncanny resemblance to a twentieth-century matinee idol. The twentieth-century look mostly came from his bad health and the crudity of his makeup. Bruno had a broad wavy-haired rock-solid head with the greasy pores typical of heavy male steroid treatment. He wore a lacquered straw hat and a thin-lapelled dark suit and crisply creased tailored slacks and a shirt without a cellphone.
Bruno didn’t bluster or threaten. He swaggered a bit, but he lacked the smooth enormous muscle of people truly devoted to muscle. Bruno was terrifying because he truly looked willing and able to kill people, without hesitation and without regret afterward. Bruno looked truly feral. He looked old and beaten, too, like a very sick wolf. He looked as if he had chewed off his own leg and eaten it and enjoyed the flavor.
For a man driving to his own execution, Bruno