The House That Jack Built Read Free Page A

stomach.
        He had been hit before - in boxing, in racquetball, in athletics - but never like this. He pitched back onto the wire shelving and shattered glass as if he had been knocked down by a speeding taxi. His head hit the wall with a terrible donking sound and he bit right through his bottom lip. He was so winded that he couldn't breathe, and when he clawed at the floor to try to lift himself up, his left hand was pricked and sliced by razor-sharp fragments of glass.
        But somebody seized his lapels and dragged him up onto his feet. Somebody strong and dark; somebody who smelled of rain and cigarettes and alcohol.
        There was somebody else, too. Somebody standing very close beside him. Far too close to be friendly.
        'What you doin' here, pal?' said the somebody who was standing very close beside him. 'Someone invite you in?'
        Craig wheezed and coughed. His stomach felt as if it were blazing. He never knew a punch could hurt so much.
        'Looking for Susan,' he managed to choke out.
        'Ain't no Susan here, pal. Ain't no muff at all. Just he and me.'
        'It's okay, then. I made a mistake. I'm sorry.'
        'Well, we're glad that you sorry. But sorry ain't enough. Sorry don't pay the man. Sorry don't make nobody feel better 'ceptin' the dude who says it.'
        Craig felt appalling. He began to tremble with ice-cold shocks, as if somebody were emptying buckets of cold water over him, one after another. He felt nauseous, but he couldn't bring anything up. His stomach felt as if it wasn't there any more. Why did he feel so cold?
        'What do you want?' he managed to ask them, in a bubbly voice.
        'Your money, pal. Your credit cards. Your jewellery. Whatever you got.'
        He took a deep breath, tried to say something, and then puked up a mouthful of bile and blood and Khryssa's chicken brioche, half-chewed.
        'Hey pal, you disgustin'. You sick.'
        'Take whatever you want,' he told them.
        'Okay, okay. But don't go hurlin' them chunks on me none.'
        'Take it, just take it.' He spat food from his mouth, and a string of sour-tasting saliva swung from his chin.
        'You one disgustin' dude, you know that? I seen dogs better behaved.'
        He waited, quaking, his eyes downcast, his shoulders hunched, while the young man reached into his coat and took out his wallet. Quick, dirty fingers went through his pockets, lifting his pens, his calculator, his loose change.
        'You goin' to be glad you did this, pal. Not everybody gets the chance to make a donation to the Aktuz.'
        Craig raised his eyes. In the darkness of the derelict drugstore, he could make out very little, only the faint gleam of rainy streetlight on a black cheekbone and a black shoulder; and eyes that glittered like blowflies.
        He turned to look at the boy who was standing beside him, and for a split-second this boy moved across the light and Craig caught a glimpse of a tall, cadaverous youth with deep-sunk eyes and a mouth stretched back in a gin-trap disarray of overlapping teeth. What struck him most of all was the youth's hair, which had been gelled up around his head like a gleaming black crown, and the heavy black frock coat that he was wearing. He looked like an extra from a movie about Mozart, except that he wasn't carrying a silver-topped stick or a violin. He was carrying a hammer.
        God, thought Craig, no wonder that goddamned blow to my stomach hurt me so much.
        'Watch and ring, pal,' the youth told him.
        Craig reluctantly took off his Rolex and his wedding-band. He nearly puked for a second time, but he managed to swallow it back. He didn't want to antagonise his attackers any more than they were antagonised already.
        The boy in the frock coat came very close beside him. 'We leavin' now. I know what's happenin' inside of you' haid, you thinkin', shit, they makin a fool out of me now, but you