Free Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson Page B

something important.
    She remembered him in Cleveland, the first time, how he’d come out to the place to
     look at a scoot the old man had for sale, a three-wheel Skoda that was mostly rust.
     The old man grew catfish in concrete tanks that fenced the dirt yard. She was in the
     house when Eddy came, long high-walled space of a truck trailer up on blocks. There
     were windows cut down one side, square holes sealed over with scratched plastic. She
     was standing by the stove, smell of onions in sacks and tomatoes hung up to dry, when
     she felt him there, down the length of the room, sensed the muscle and shoulder of
     him, his white teeth, the black nylon cap held shyly in his hand. Sun was coming in
     the windows, the place lit up bare and plain, the floor swept the way the old man
     had her keep it, but it was like a shadow came, blood-shadow where she heard the pumping
     of her heart, and him coming closer, tossing the cap on the bare chipboard table as
     he passed it, not shy now but like he lived there, right up to her, running a hand
     with a bright ring back through the oiled weight of his hair. The old man came in
     then and Mona turned away, pretended to do something with the stove. Coffee, the old
     man said, and Mona went to get some water, filling the enamel pot from the roof-tank
     line, the water gurgling down through the charcoal filter. Eddy and the old man sitting
     at the table, drinking black coffee, Eddy’s legs spread straight out under the table,
     thighs hard through threadbare denim. Smiling, jiving the old man, dealing for the
     Skoda. How it seemed to run okay, how he’d buy it if the old man had the title. Old
     man getting up to dig in a drawer. Eddy’s eyes on her again. She followed them out
     into the yard and watched him straddle the cracked vinyl saddle. Backfire set the
     old man’s black dogs yelping, high sweet smell of cheapalcohol exhaust and the frame trembling between his legs.
    Now she watched him pose beside his suitcases, and it was hard to connect that up,
     why she’d left with him next day on the Skoda, headed into Cleveland. The Skoda’d
     had a busted little radio you couldn’t hear over the engine, just play it soft at
     night in a field by the road. Tuner part was cracked so it only picked up one station,
     ghost music up from some lonesome tower in Texas, steel guitar fading in and out all
     night, feeling how she was wet against his leg and the stiff dry grass prickling the
     back of her neck.
    Prior put her blue bag into a white cart with a striped top and she climbed in after
     it, hearing tiny Spanish voices from the Cuban driver’s headset. Then Eddy stowed
     the gator cases and he and Prior got in. Rolling out to the runway through walls of
     rain.
    The plane wasn’t what she knew from the stims, not like a long rich bus inside, with
     lots of seats. It was a little black thing with sharp, skinny wings and windows that
     made it look like it was squinting.
    She went up some metal stairs and there was a space with four seats and the same gray
     carpet all over, on the walls and ceiling too, everything clean and cool and gray.
     Eddy came in after her and took a seat like it was something he did every day, loosening
     his tie and stretching his legs. Prior was pushing buttons beside the door. It made
     a sighing sound when it closed.
    She looked out the narrow, streaming windows at runway lights reflected on wet concrete.
    Came down here on the train
, she thought,
New York to Atlanta and then you change
.
    The plane shivered. She heard the airframe creak as it came to life.

    She woke briefly, two hours later, in the darkened cabin, cradled by the long hum
     of the jet. Eddy was asleep, his mouth half-open. Maybe Prior was sleeping too, or
     maybe he just had his eyes closed, she couldn’t tell.
    Halfway back into a dream she wouldn’t remember in the morning, she heard the sound
     of that Texas radio, fading steel chords drawn out like an