“Where party?”

“What folks gonna ask you” Chevette said.

“Floor nine! Big party!”

The girl’s eyes were all pupil, her bangs glossy as plastic.

So Chevette, with a real glass wine-glass full of real French wine in one hand, and the smallest sandwich she’d ever seen in the other, came to find herself wondering how long she still had before the hotel’s computer noticed she hadn’t yet left the premises. Not that they were likely to come looking for her here, because someone had obviously put down good money to have this kind of party.

Some really private kind, because she could see these people in a darkened bathroom, smoking ice through a blown-glass dolphin, its smooth curves illuminated by the fluttering bluish tongue of an industrial-strength lighter.

Not just one room, either, but lots of them, all connected up. And lots of people, too, the men mostly gotten up in those suits with the four-button jackets, stiff shirts with those choker collars, and no tie but a little jeweled stud. The women wore clothes Chevette had only seen in magazines. Rich people, had to be, and foreign, too. Though maybe rich was foreign enough.

She’d managed to get the Japanese girl horizontal on a long green couch, where she was snoring now, and safe enough unless somebody sat on her.

Looking around, Chevette had seen that she wasn’t the only underdressed local to have somehow scammed entry. The guy in the bathroom working the big yellow Bic, for starters, but he was an extreme case. Then there were a couple of pretty obvious Tenderloin working-girls, too, but maybe that was no more than the accepted amount of local color for whatever this was supposed to be.

But then this asshole’s right in her face, grinning his mean-ass drunken grin, and she’s got her hand on a little folding-knife, something else she’s borrowed from Skinner. It has a hole in the blade that you can press the tip of your thumb into and snap it open, one-handed. That blade’s under three inches, broad as a soupspoon, wickedly serrated, and ceramic. Skinner says it’s a fractal knife, its actual edge more than twice as long as the blade itself.

“You’re not enjoying yourself, I think” he says. European, but she’s not sure which flavor. Not French or German. His jacket’s leather, too, but nothing like Skinner’s. Some thin-skinned animal whose hide drapes like heavy silk, the color of tobacco. She thinks of the smell of the yellow-spined magazines up in Skinner’s room, some so old the pictures are only shades of gray, the way the city looks, sometimes, from the bridge.

“Doing fine ’til you showed up” Chevette says, thinking it’s probably time to go, this guy’s bad news.

“Tell me” he says, looking appraisingly at the jacket and the t-shirt and the bike-pants, “what services you offer.”

“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

“Clearly” he says, pointing at the Tenderloin girls across the room, “you offer something more interesting” and he rolls his tongue wetly around the word, “than these two.”

“Fuck that” Chevette says, “I’m a messenger.”

And a funny pause crosses his face, like something’s gotten past his drunk, nudged him. Then he throws back his head and laughs like it’s the biggest joke in the world. She gets a look at a lot of very white, very expensive-looking teeth. Rich people never have any metal in their teeth, Skinner’s told her.

“I say something funny?”

The asshole wipes his eyes. “But we have something in common, you and I.”

“I doubt it.”

“I am a messenger” he says, though he looks to Chevette like a moderate hill would put him in line for a pig-valve.

“A courier” he says, like he’s reminding himself.

“So proj on” she says, and steps around him, but just then the lights go out, the music starts, and it’s the intro to Chrome Koran’s ‘She God’s Girlfriend.’ Chevette, who has kind of a major thing for Chrome Koran, and cranks them on her bike whenever she needs a boost to proj on, just moves with it now, everybody dancing, even the icers from the bathroom.

With the asshole gone, or anyway forgotten she notices how much better these people look dancing. She finds herself opposite this girl in a leather skirt, little black boots with jingling silver spurs. Chevette grins; the girl grins back.

“You’re from the city?” the girl asks, “as ‘She God’s Girlfriend’ eh” and for a second Chevette thinks she’s being asked if she’s a municipal messenger. The girl—woman—is older than she’d thought; late twenties maybe, but definitely older than Chevette. Good-looking without looking like it came out of a kit; dark eyes, dark hair cut short. “San Francisco?”

Chevette nods.

The next tune’s older than she is; that black guy who turned white, and then his face fell in, she guesses. She looks down for her drink but they all look alike. Her Japanese doll dances past, bangs swinging, no recognition in her eyes as she sees Chevette.

“Cody can usually find all he needs, in San Francisco” the woman says, a tiredness behind her voice but at the same time you can tell she thinks it’s all pretty funny. German, Chevette thinks by her accent.

“Who?”

The woman raises her eyebrows. “Our host.” But she’s still got her wide easy grin.

“Just sort of walked in …”

“Could I only say the same!” The woman laughs.

“Why?”

“Then I could walk out again.”

“You don’t like it?” Up close, she smells expensive. Chevette’s suddenly worried about how she must smell herself, after a day on the bike and no shower. But the woman takes her elbow and leads her aside.

“You don’t know Cody?”

“No.” Chevette sees the drunk, the asshole, through the doorway into the next room, where the lights are still on. He’s looking right at her. “And I think maybe I should leave now, okay?”

“You won’t have to. Please. I only envy you the option.”

“You German?”

“Padanjan.”

Chevette knows that’s part of what used to be Italy. The northern part, she thinks. “Who’s this Cody?”

“Cody likes a party. Cody likes this party. This party’s been going on for several years now. When it isn’t here, it’s in London, Prague, Macau…” A boy is moving through the crowd with a tray of drinks. He doesn’t look to Chevette like he works for the hotel. His stiff white shirt’s not so stiff anymore; it’s open all the way, wrinkled tails hanging loose, and she sees he has one of those things like a little steel barbell through one nipple. His stiff collar’s popped off at the front and sticks up behind his neck like a slipped halo. The woman takes a glass of white wine when he offers the tray. Chevette shakes her head. There’s a white saucer on the tray, with pills and what look like twists of dancer.

The boy winks at Chevette and moves on.

“You find this strange?” The woman drinks her wine off and tosses the empty glass over her shoulder. Chevette hears it break.

“Huh?”

“Cody’s party.”

“Yeah. I guess. I mean, I just walked in…”

“Where do you live?”

“The bridge.” Watching for the reaction.

The grin widens. “Really? It looks so… mysterious. I’d like to go there, but there are no tours, and they say it’s dangerous…”

“It’s not” Chevette says, then hesitates. “Just don’t dress up so much, right? But it’s not dangerous, not even as much as the neighborhood around here.” Thinking of the ones around the trash-fires. “Just don’t go out on Treasure Island. Don’t try to go all the way to Oakland. Stay over on the suspension side.”

“You like it, living there?”

“Shit, yes. 1 wouldn’t live anywhere else.”

The woman smiles. “You’re very lucky then, I think.”

“Well” Chevette says, feeling clumsy, “I gotta go.”

“My name is Maria…”

“Chevette” offering her hand. Almost like her own other name. Chevette-Marie.

They shake.

“Goodbye, Chevette.”

“You have a nice party, okay?”