Chapters (60)
- DAW Books Presents
- HAPPY HOURINHELL
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Dedication
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- prologue
- one
- two
- three
- four
- five
- six
- interlude
- seven
- eight
- nine
- ten
- eleven
- twelve
- interlude
- thirteen
- fourteen
- interlude
- fifteen
- sixteen
- seventeen
- eighteen
- nineteen
- twenty
- twenty-one
- interlude
- twenty-two
- twenty-three
- twenty-four
- twenty-five
- twenty-six
- twenty-seven
- twenty-eight
- twenty-nine
- thirty
- thirty-one
- thirty-two
- thirty-three
- thirty-four
- thirty-five
- thirty-six
- thirty-seven
- thirty-eight
- thirty-nine
- forty
- forty-one
- forty-two
- forty-three
- forty-four
- forty-five
- forty-six
- forty-seven
- forty-eight
- epilogue
His only concern seemed to be that his girlfriend might come in and find me there. “I mean, Posie’s cool, man, you know she’s cool, but she’s like a girl, you know? I mean, dangerous shit just freaks her right out. If I wasn’t here, she might, like, call the police or something.”
Which, I had to admit, was a genuine concern. “Don’t worry, G-Man,” I said, soothing him with his self-selected nickname. “I can be under the bed. We’ll just drape a sheet over me to keep off the dust and the spiders, and I’ll be good to go.”
“Whoa. You’re just going to lie under the bed up here for a couple of weeks? Spooky.” But that seemed to have addressed his major concern. “I’ll make sure nobody bothers you, Bobby man.”
“Just make sure that nobody includes you,” I said. “Remember, this is a heavy-duty government medical experiment. If you mess with my body, or tell anyone I’m here, you’re risking my life and yours . . . as well as the safety of the Free World.”
Sorry, but I just couldn’t help fucking with him. You’d probably have done it too.
G-Man’s eyes lit up. “Aye-aye, dude!” he said, saluting so hard he knocked off his sideways baseball cap.
The Museum of Industry is a big old place in the Belmont neighborhood west of the Camino Real in North Jude. It used to be the Phagan Mansion back in the days when Belmont was on the rural outskirts of San Judas and people like the Phagans made so much money that they could barely spend it fast enough to keep from drowning in it. A later generation realized the mansion was worth more as a taxable donation, I guess, and gave it to the city.
The museum was made up of what had been the main house, a sprawling three-story structure probably easy to get lost in even when it was a house, and two wings that had been built later. The three parts of the museum were divided into different historical aspects of San Judas and California. One wing focused on the original native inhabitants and the earliest European explorers and settlements; the main house, on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when San Judas took off and grew large; then the modern Silicon Valley era in the other wing. It was a popular game among local wags to come up with names for the three sections and their eras—“Ships, Shops, and Chips” was a popular one and, of course, the less politically correct “Injuns, Engines, and Multi-User Dungeons.” (The last is a computer game thing, I think, but if you want to know for sure, you’ll have to ask someone who’s never had sex.)