Free Pattern Recognition by William Gibson Page A

you tired?” he asks.
    “Jet lag.” Automatically returning Bigend’s toast, lager clinking kir.
    “It shrinks the frontal lobes. Physically. Did you know that? Clearly visible on a scan.”
    Cayce swallows some beer, winces. “No,” she says, “it’s because the soul travels more slowly, and arrives late.”
    “You mentioned souls earlier.”
    “Did I?” She can’t remember.
    “Yes. Do you believe in them?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Neither do I.” He sips. “You don’t get along with Dorotea?”
    “Who told you that?”
    “Bernard felt you didn’t. She can be very difficult.”
    Cayce is suddenly aware of her East German plastic envelope, where it rests beneath the table, across her thighs; its weight unaccustomed, uneven, because she’s tucked her solid little bit of robot girl knuckleduster in there, against she knows not what possibility.
    “Can she?”
    “Of course. If she feels that you are about to have something she has long coveted.” Bigend’s teeth seem to have multiplied, or metastasized perhaps. His lips, wet with the kir, are very red in this light. He shakes his dark forelock away from his eyes. She is on full sexual alert now, Bigend’s ambiguity having finally gotten to her. Is this all about that, then? Does Dorotea see her as a sexual competitor? Is she in the sights of Bigend’s desire, which she knows, from her friend Margot’s stories in New York, to be at once constant and ever-shifting?
    “I don’t think I follow you, Hubertus.”
    “The London office. She thinks I am going to hire you to run the London office.”
    “That’s absurd.” And it is, huge relief, as Cayce is not someone you hire to run an agency in London. Not someone you hire to run anything. She is hyper-specialized, a freelancer, someone contracted to do a very specific job. She has seldom had a salary. She is entirely a creature of fees, adamantly short-term, no managerial skills whatever. But mainly she’s relieved if it isn’t sexual. Or at least that he seems to have indicated that it isn’t. She feels herself held by those eyes, against all conscious will. Progressively locked into something.
    Bigend’s hand comes up with his glass, and he finishes his kir. “She knows that I’m very interested in you. She wants to work for Blue Ant, and she covets Bernard’s position. She’s been angling to leave H and Ρ since well before they made her our liaison.”
    “I can’t see it,” Cayce says, meaning replacing Stonestreet withDorotea. “She’s not exactly a people person.” An insane bitch, actually. Burner of jackets and burglar of apartments.
    “No, of course not. She’d be a complete disaster. And I’ve been delighted with Bernard since the day I hired him. Dorotea may be one of those people who aren’t going to make it through.”
    “Through what?”
    “This business of ours is narrowing. Like many others. There will be fewer genuine players. It’s no longer enough to simply look the part and cultivate an attitude.”
    Cayce has imagined something like this herself, and indeed has been wondering whether she’s likely to make it through the narrowing, into whatever waits on the other side.
    “You’re smart enough,” he says. “You can’t doubt it.”
    She’ll take a page from his book, then. Caltrop time. “Why are you rebranding the world’s second-largest manufacturer of athletic shoes? Was it your idea or theirs?”
    “I don’t work that way. The client and I engage in a dialogue. A path emerges. It isn’t about the imposition of creative will.” He’s looking at her very seriously now, and to her embarrassment she feels herself shiver. She hopes he didn’t notice. If Bigend can convince himself that he doesn’t impose his will on others, he must be capable of convincing himself of anything. “It’s about contingency. I help the client go where things are already going. Do you want to know the most interesting thing about Dorotea?”
    “What?”
    “She