The sound of a helicopter has been getting louder for some minutes now. Even though Hiro lives right next to the airport, this is unusual. They're not supposed to fly right near LAX, it raises evident safety questions.
It doesn't stop getting louder until it is very loud, and at that point, the helicopter is hovering a few feet above the parking lot, right out in front of Hiro and Vitaly's 20-by-30. It's a nice one, a corporate jet chopper, dark green, with subdued markings. Hiro suspects that in brighter light, he would be able to make out the logo of a defense contractor, most likely General Jim's Defense System.
A pale-faced white man with a very high forehead-cum-bald spot jumps out of the chopper, looking a lot more athletic than his face and general demeanor would lead you to expect, and jogs across the parking lot directly toward Hiro. This is the kind of guy Hiro remembers from when his dad was in the Army -- not the gristly veterans of legends and movies, just sort of regular thirty-five-year-old guys rattling around in bulky uniforms. He's a major. His name, sewn onto his BDUs, is Clem.
Hiro Protagonist
The same.
Juanita sent me to pick you up. She said you'd recognize the name.
I recognize the name. But I don't really work for Juanita.
She says you do now.
Well, that's nice," Hiro says. "So I guess it's kind of urgent
I think that would be a fair assumption," Major Clem says.
Can I spare a few minutes? Because I've been working out, and I need to run next door.
Major Clem looks next door. The next logo down the strip is
THE REST STOP.
The situation is fairly static. You could spare five minutes," Major Clem says. Hiro has an account with The Rest Stop. To live at the U-Stor-It, you sort of have to have an account. So he gets to bypass the front office where the attendant waits by the cash register. He shoves his membership card into a slot, and a computer screen lights up with three choices
M F NURSERY (UNISEX
Hiro slaps the "M" button. Then the screen changes to a menu of four choices
OUR SPECIAL LIMITED FACILITIES -- THRIFTY BUT SANITARY STANDARD FACILITIES -- JUST LIKE HOME -- MAYBE JUST A LITTLE BETTER PRIME FACILITIES -- A GRACIOUS PLACE FOR THE DISCRIMINATING PATRON THE LAVATORY GRANDE ROYALE
He has to override a well-worn reflex to stop himself from automatically punching SPECIAL LIMITED FACILITIES, which is what he and all the other U-Stor-It residents always use. Almost impossible to go in there and not come in contact with someone else's bodily fluids. Not a pretty sight. Not at all gracious. Instead -- what the flick, Juanita's going to hire him, right? -- he slams the button for LAVATORY GRANDE ROYALE.
Never been here before. It's like something on the top floor of a luxury high-rise casino in Atlantic City, where they put semi-retarded adults from South Philly after they've blundered into the mega-jackpot. It's got everything that a dimwitted pathological gambler would identify with luxury: gold-plated fixtures, lots of injection-molded pseudomarble, velvet drapes, and a butler. None of the U-Stor-It residents ever use The Lavatory Grande Royale. The only reason it's here is that this place happens to be across the street from LAX. Singaporean CEOs who want to have a shower and take a nice, leisurely crap, with all the sound effects, without having to hear and smell other travelers doing the same, can come here and put it all on their corporate travel card.
The butler is a thirty-year-old CentroAmerican whose eyes look a little funny, like they've been closed for the last several hours. He is just throwing some improbably thick towels over his arm as Hiro bursts in.
Gotta get in and out in five minutes," Hiro says.
You want shave?" the butler says. He paws at his own cheeks suggestively, unable to peg Hiro's ethnic group.
Love to. No time.
He peels off his jockey shorts, tosses his swords onto the crushed-velvet sofa, and steps into the marbleized amphitheatre of the shower stall. Hot water hits him from all directions at once. There's a knob on the wall so you can choose your favorite temperature.
Afterward, he'd like to take a dump, read some of those glossy phone book-sized magazines next to the high-tech shitter, but he's got to get going. He dries himself off with a fresh towel the size of a circus tent, yanks on some loose drawstring slacks and a T-shirt, throws some Kongbucks at the butler, and runs out, girding himself with the swords.