Andrei led them up three flights of perforated iron stairs, bracketed to the portholed superstructure of the Charles Nogues . There was an intermittent flow of locals up and down the stairs, with chatting crowds on the landings. Everyone wore the same pocketed jeans and the standard-issue cotton blouses. But a chosen few had plastic shirt-pocket protectors, with pens. Two pens, or three pens, or even four. One guy, a beer-bellied Rasta with a frown and bald spot, had half a dozen gold-plated fibertips. He was followed by a crowd of flunkies. "Whoopee, real Socialism," Laura muttered at Carlotta.