Good to Be God Read Free Page B

Shootastic. This might have been for the same reason that criminals have street names, so no one knows the real one. Many of the nicknames were giveaways however: The Pan had a frying pan fixed on the back of his jacket, and Pussyfiller was mostly interested in that.
    14

    GOOD TO BE GOD
    The only one of Rehab’s circle with a normal name was Larry.
    Rehab had a massive transparent plastic container next to him, the sort you’d fill up with potato salad for a picnic.
    Inside was a large spider. Bigger than my hand. Certainly the largest I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been to a zoo or two. The large spiders I saw there, the tarantulas, were immobile and as exciting to watch as a tired pebble. This spider was drumming forcefully on the sides of the container in arachnid fury.
    “Yeah, that’s right,” said Rehab. “You know how they say wild creatures don’t want trouble? They’ll only attack you if they’re threatened? They only want to be left alone? To be wild and do natural shit? Not Larry. He’ll attack you because you’re… there.
    And if you’re not there… he’ll come looking for you.”
    For the next two days I didn’t sleep much. Highlights included heavy cop betting on Larry, as he had a number of fights. Larry vs white mouse. Larry vs rat. Larry vs an especially hefty rat Clingfilm and I spent hours searching for in a drainage ditch.
    Larry vs boa constrictor (this was much duller than it sounded
    – the boa was huge, but lifeless, despite encouraging kicks from its owner). Larry vs an insultingly small spider Unibrow found on a plant and bet on simply to annoy Rehab (it was adjudged a draw, although nothing happened and Rehab insisted, “It’s too small for Larry to see.”) Finally, Larry vs a pitbull called Loco. Larry took out the pitbull with one bite and did a runner, several members of the audience getting above head height in palm trees in their ardour to give Larry plenty of clearance.
    Three times a day a delivery van would present Rehab with a tray of tiramisu. The whole time I never saw him eat anything else or drink anything but cognac. I did my stuff for Nelson: I spent the float he’d given me. I gave away his catalogues, although we only went to the conference proper for half an 15

    TIBOR FISCHER
    hour because Rehab needed to borrow money. Two Costa Rican prostitutes I found in my bathroom recounted to me something of their country’s history, of which I was embarrassingly ignorant (apparently it’s one of the few countries that doesn’t have an army), before I redirected them to Pussyfiller.
    We had a lively session at a shooting range, which had a long list of rules displayed in several places in head-sized letters.
    There was only one rule we didn’t break, but when the owner of the shooting range is your friend who’s counting? I shall always remember fondly Shootastic blasting the ash off The Pan’s cigar with an armour-piercing round from a hundred feet (admittedly, it was a freakishly long cigar…).
    One of the most memorable moments, however, was ostensibly trivial. I was helping Earmuseum and Unibrow carry a sofa out of the lobby of a snazzy hotel – we weren’t strictly speaking stealing it, because it was for a bet Earmuseum had made with The Pan. Earmuseum had been scathing about hotel security, and the low calibre of the employees. “Man, we could just walk in there, pick up a sofa, and walk out.” He was right.
    He collected fifty dollars from The Pan and another hundred from the driver of a pickup truck who liked the sofa.
    But as we were carrying the sofa out, although the security staff weren’t in evidence, I noticed this man looking right at me.
    There was something familiar about him. Forties, stocky, shaved head. Actor? Politician? He was dressed Miami-style in a turquoise guayabera, and jewellery peeked from his chest, though I couldn’t tell whether the necklaces were some cultural-heritage crap or straight bling. But he looked right at me and he