-How do you know it works?

-Irrelevant. Let me put it to you this way: there's nothing viral about these new forms of communication, of social interaction, Marcus. The kids don't need better, they need or at least want new. A virus mutates and adapts to survive, but most of these virtual mutations will not survive. Which is not Darwinian, because n.o.body really understands that you can't apply the evolution of species to the evolution of ideas. Apples and pomegranates. Did you know there's a networking site called s.p.a.cebook? It's just for potheads. And Tracebook. That's for stalkers. These networks will target groups more and more specific until everyone has his own network to which he alone belongs. It's inevitable.

-I'm not sure ...

-Thus, therefore, ergo, the chief virtue of Pandemonium-well, okay, one of its chief virtues-lies in its adaptability. Like any good parasite, we can shift from delivery service-IM, Skype, Twitter, Fluxus, Squeak, Trap Soul Door-to delivery service, ping-ponging all over the 3G spectrum. Undetectable as love, we go where you go. We follow the action. And in so doing, we become the action.

-Exactly how much c.o.ke did you do before meeting me?

-This is my brain not on drugs. Scary, right?

Marcus looked at Guy over the rim of his upraised gla.s.s. -What a waste of a mind.

-You stole that line from Dad.

-He said that?

-Right, because it doesn't sound like anything he would say.

-Great minds ...

-...come to the same facile and entirely flawed conclusions. Is, I believe, the phrase you're groping for.

Marcus sighed, shook his head. -I say again: how do you know it works?

-How do you know anything works? I mean, there's still people, and I'm on the fence about this one, who insist the moon landing was staged on a back lot here in Los Angeles, that there's no proof. The beauty of any new concept is that proof is in the eye of the beholder. Remember when that electric two-wheeled thingy was supposed to revolutionize urban transportation, solve all our congestion problems, get rid of pollution, etcetera?

-Yes. The Segway.

-Yeah, well, there were a lot of very smart people who bought into that idea in the secret prototype phase. Very smart and very rich people, I might add. And not a single one of them stopped to think, Yes, okay, it works, but won't anyone on one of these things look incredibly gay?

-How is that applicable to your project?

-It's like you're not even listening. You want another one? Guy signaled to a pa.s.sing waitress.

Marcus nodded yes and tipped back his gla.s.s, the halfmelted ice clacking against the rim.

-You're not going to give me the money, are you?

-No. In the first place, I don't even understand the name. Why Pandemonium? That's not a name that says "safe investment" to me.

-Wrong. I mean right, but wrong. The VCs I'll be talking to don't want safe. They're desperately afraid of missing out on the next big boat, and they don't care if it's the t.i.tanic, because that was, let's face it, a historic boat, a boat people will always remember, even before the movie. In any case, the name's just a come-on. It doesn't mean anything specific. It just gives a sense to potential investors that something new is going to happen.

-Why would I pay simply for novelty?

-You wouldn't, Marcus. None of the Marcuses you've ever been your whole life would ever pay for that. Just like you'd never pay for s.e.x.

-You don't know that.

-Have you? Ever?

-Not yet. But just because something hasn't happened yet doesn't mean ...

-Stop playing really-annoying-grad-student for one d.a.m.n minute.

-I'm not ...

-I know. I was making a point. Jesus, it's like you've never heard anyone but yourself talk.

-Sorry.

-There's a lot of people, an awful lot, who have paid for s.e.x. Who do pay for it. Who will continue to pay for it. It's a multibillion-dollar business. Bigger than movies and music and every other form of entertainment on earth combined.

-I'm not sure that's true.

-It doesn't matter if it's true. We're not selling s.e.x. I'm making an a.n.a.logy. Our pitch is that Pandemonium is better than s.e.x.

-Who's "us"?

-See this? This is an imaginary stick. You've just grabbed hold of one end of the imaginary stick. You know which end? The wrong one.

-What's the difference? It's imaginary.

-Everything is imaginary, Marcus. Everything that's worth anything. Pandemonium is worth more than you can imagine, precisely because it's imaginary.

-I'm confused.

-Confusion is s.e.x.

-What?

-Nothing. Obscure rock music reference. Couldn't help myself.

-That's the trouble with you, Guy. You have no selfdiscipline.

-And the trouble with you, Marcus, is that you have nothing but self-discipline. There's no goal. No purpose. You keep at it and at it, you're dogged and determined and all those dreary adjectives, but toward what end?

-Now who sounds like a grad student?

-Touche, a.s.shole. Last chance: you going to lend me the money or not?

-I'm leaning toward not.

-I'm leaning toward the floor. Buy me a drink.

-You have a drink.

-I mean another drink. Obviously. c.o.c.ksucker.

13A. MINUTES LATER, MARCUS GOES TO THE BATHROOM, JUST AT THE MOMENT HIS WIFE CONSTANCE, WHO ACCOMPANIED HIM TO LOS ANGELES FOR THE QUANTUM CHROMODYNAMICS CONFERENCE, WALKS INTO THE LOBBY OF THE CHATEAU MARMONT LOOKING FOR HER HUSBAND-AGAIN, ABOUT TWO WEEKS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

Guy's heart sank at the sight of Constance. Constance's heart sank at the sight of Guy. He motioned for her to take a seat, which she did reluctantly.

-He'll be right back, said Guy. -Men's room.

-Okay. Good.

An awkward silence developed between Guy and Constance, a vacuum that somehow the ambient chatter of the rest of the lobby's guests could not fill.

-You doing all right? asked Guy, for lack of anything else to say.

-Why bother pretending, Guy?

-Okay. Fine. Look, Constance, I love my brother. I mean, I don't like him very much, and he doesn't like me, but that's cool, that's fine. By extension, I'm supposed to love you too. Or at least like you. You're family. I'm told family is important. I don't know why it's important, but that's what I hear. That's the word on the street.

-You live on a strange street, Guy.

-Is this really just about the teeth-brushing thing?

-I'd call that symptomatic of a deeper problem.

-Because I'm willing to do a lot to satisfy my familial responsibilities. I mean, not really, but I might consider certain changes if they were reasonable. But I'm not going to brush my f.u.c.king teeth just because my brother's wife thinks it's disgusting.

-I'm not crazy about your haircut either.

-This is the nub of our problem, Constance. I don't care what you think.

-I'm not sure you want to say nub.

-Yeah, whatever.

Silence once again descended like a grade-school play curtain between the two.

-What the f.u.c.k is he doing in there? said Guy after a while.

-Brushing his teeth, replied Constance, with a sarcastic smile.

14. THE NIGHT GUY MET VIOLET MCKNIGHT, FIVE MONTHS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO.

The Smog Cutter doesn't look like much from the outside. It doesn't look like much from the inside either, but its grime is its charm, apparently. Grime and karaoke-which at the time Guy met Violet had not yet become the hipster cliche it has since become. In other words, although those who partic.i.p.ated in the nightly karaoke sessions at the Smog Cutter did so largely in quotation marks, these quotation marks still had a certain fresh appeal, had not yet worn out their welcome in the smugly insular world of Los Angeles' bohemian cla.s.s. It was therefore not unusual to find famous rock musicians, like the bald singer from R.E.M., and famous actors, like the thin blond girl from the Charlie's Angels remakes, rubbing elbows and too-sharp rib cages with ordinary Beck-a-likes in trucker hats with sideburns and horn-rimmed gla.s.ses.

The drinks were cheap, though watered down, and you had to wait forever for your turn at the microphone, which would usually get hijacked by one of the celebrities anyway. Guy found it incredibly annoying to get halfway through the first verse of Supertramp's "The Logical Song" only to be interrupted by an overeager and tone-deaf Rising Starlette wearing a gray satin slip dress that clung to her erect nipples like saran wrap. Who would then spill her rum and c.o.ke on the sleeve of Guy's only good jacket, laughing at herself in an attempt to prove that she was capable of laughing at herself.

-Why did you go, then? asked Violet, several weeks later, in languid repose on her reposable futon.

-Same reason everybody goes. There was nothing else to do. Why were you there?

-Free drinks. The Chinese lady who runs the place likes me. I think she's a lesbian.

Guy nodded. -Free drinks is a really good excuse.

The night Guy met Violet, she was sitting at the bar in a white dress with a white feather boa around her neck, long before feather boas became either fashionable or ironically fashionable, and on Violet looked unaffectedly s.e.xy. Her hair was dark brown, medium-length and tousled, with shiny turquoise clips placed at seeming random, and her lipstick was red and her fingernails were red and her toenails were red and her eyes-like the two small tattoos on the back of her neck and on her left shoulder, abstract curlicues-were green.

-It's my birthday, said Guy, pushing his way to the bar through the unruly crowd, into a s.p.a.ce next to Violet, who looked him over and smiled mutely. It was, of course, not Guy's birthday, that was his standard opening line, and he had waited three drinks before summoning the courage to talk to Violet, who had attracted his attention on several earlier nights, and again tonight, the moment Guy pushed through the red plastic strips that hung just inside the front door, outside of which, in the gray Los Angeles night, the doorman knew Guy well enough not to ask to see his ID. The shiver of pleasure you get when a doorman recognizes you, when you have become a regular, when you are no longer entirely anonymous in a city that loves to deliver crushing reminders of your anonymity regularly, right to your face, was one of Guy's favorite small triumphs.

-Can I buy you a drink to celebrate my happy occasion? Guy continued, noticing that Violet had not stopped smiling or looking at him since he had spoken to her, and taking this as a sign of encouragement.

-What's your name? asked Violet.

-Guy.

-That's a funny name. Guy. What's your last name?

-Forget. My name is Guy Forget. It should be p.r.o.nounced For-zhay, but no one ever does. Just like my first name should be p.r.o.nounced Ghee, but no one ever does.

-Why not?

-I don't know. They just don't. When I was younger that used to bother me, but it doesn't now.

-My name's Violet.

-Like the flower?

-Yes. Which brings us to the limit of my interest in gardening. I hope you have something else to talk about.

-I've seen you in here before.

-I come here a lot. So do you.

-And yet we've never met. Until now.

-On your birthday.