Free Warp by Lev Grossman Page B

never go for that. And she likes her men taller.”
    â€œI’m pretty tall,” he said.
    â€œBut she likes them taller.”
    She skipped her hand lightly along the roof of a parked car, a cheap green Subaru.
    â€œI used to have this exact car.”
    Hollis looked back at it for a second as they went past.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with my coat?” he said.
    She didn’t answer.
    She was still walking slowly, swinging the hand with the cigarette. They were headed away from Harvard Square in the direction of Boston, up Mass Ave.; most of the stores were still very upscale—gourmet foods, futon outlets, software, a Crate & Barrel—but they got less and less chic the farther they went. In the doorway of an office building two homeless people sat under army blankets. One of them asked her for a cigarette as they went by.
    She shook her head, without looking: “Sorry.”
    A cold wind blew down the wide street and gusted in their faces.
    â€œWhere’d you learn that phone trick?” Hollis asked.
    â€œFrom a book,” she said. “I have this friend in Stockholm who I call sometimes. It started adding up after a while, and I needed a way to cut some corners.”
    â€œYou’re not into e-mail?”
    â€œWe’re not exactly dealing with Phiber Optik on the other end. And foreign character sets can get pretty ugly when you’re crossing national borders. And anyway, where’s the glamour in e-mail?”
    â€œGood question,” Hollis said. “I was in Stockholm once. I got sick there, and nobody could figure out what it was. I went to the emergency room, and it turned out I had scurvy. I was backpacking around Europe and I just wasn’t getting any citrus. It took them forever to figure out how to translate it.”
    Alix looked at him and made a face. “That’s disgusting.”
    â€œI guess.” Hollis shrugged. “At the time I thought it was glamorous.”
    She snorted. “It’s a fine line.”
    â€œI had to live on limes for like, six weeks.” Hollis kicked a pebble along the street with his boot. “So aren’t you afraid the bank’s going to catch you?”
    â€œIn a way, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet.”
    Across the street, a policeman idly rapped on a parking meter with his nightstick, and she raised her voice as they passed him:
    â€œI’m surprised they haven’t caught me yet! I try to call at different times. So far that’s been good enough.”
    â€œYou know there’s a camera in there.”
    â€œI know there’s a camera in there,” she said sharply. “Not being a complete idiot.”
    She flicked her cigarette down into the grate of a storm drain. It sparked redly in the darkness before disappearing into the depths.
    â€œWhat do you think I was doing sitting up there on that stupid shelf? I’m pretty sure there’s a blind spot there, where the cameras can’t reach. I doubt they monitor twenty-four hours anyway. And who do you think they were looking at the whole time I was on the phone, camera-boy? You, that’s who.”
    Hollis was silent for a few seconds.
    â€œWell, I always wanted to be on TV,” he said finally.
    His resources of indifference were immense.
    They walked together as far as Central Square, a broad, complicated intersection where the residential neighborhoods of Cambridge started to give way to the poorer, more industrial zone of Cambridgeport. It was a bad area, and even this late at night there was a lot of activity: cops, homeless people, prostitutes, hostile young men, white, black, and Hispanic, all milling around aimlessly. The only stores open were a Rite Aid and a Dunkin’ Donuts that did its business through a window in a metal shutter. Every possible surface—lampposts, bus shelters, construction sites, the stairs down to the subway—was covered with cheap paper fliers. One of