.

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ a message saying that I had a free pass in future. I told them I wouldn't be coming back.

      ‘Yeah, he said you'd say that,’ the man said.

      Which left me with a little under 700 dollars, just about enough for a beaten-up truck and the gas to get us out of the state. After that, who knows what was going to happen? Certainly not me. I was in kind of a bad mood by then; wishing I'd had another drink with Howie, wishing I'd had several more, in fact, and just forgotten about the spares. I've never been good with responsibility. That much at least seemed not to have changed.

      All I could sense for the future was the sound of road beneath tyres and the chill of winter evenings in places I didn't know. After so long away from New Richmond I could hardly believe this was it: a quick score, and then scurrying away back into the wilderness. The feeling got so strong that I actually stopped walking, turned and looked back up at the city. Other pedestrians had to pass either side of me, muttering and glaring, and what they saw was a man just standing, staring up at a building, probably with an expression somewhere between love and hate in his eyes.

      Halfway back to Mal's I'd stopped at the Minimart, knowing there were things we needed. I expected a fast and joyless shopping experience. I didn't expect to be stared at. I knew my clothes looked ragged, and I've got a couple of scars on my face – but who hasn't, these days? This is a time for scars. It's a feature. The counter man didn't look especially charming himself. He had the slab knuckles of someone who'd grown up fighting, and the flat eyes of a man who could watch bad things and not feel too much about them. He was big in the shoulders but going to seed out front, and his face looked like someone had spent a happy afternoon flattening it out with a spade. The few other customers I'd seen were fumbling for the cheapest brands of alcohol and shambling up to the counter to pay with heaps of small change. Derelicts, in other words, in a store run by an ex-hood where the lino on the floor was yellowed and worn with age and curled up at every join to show the stained concrete underneath.

      Maybe I looked too refined.

      There was a convex plastic mirror hanging at the end of the aisle, bent in the middle from some past impact and so dirty as to be nearly opaque. It was there to stop people lifting stuff from the dead zone, but I doubt the proprietor could see much more in it than ghosts. As I walked slowly towards the cold goods I caught sight of my battered reflection. I guess I might have looked a little wired, and in certain lights my eyes can look a little weird. I have the Bright Eyes, for a start, though it generally requires a certain kind of slanting light to show, rather than the sickly haze which oozed out the Mart's tired strip lighting.

      I knew he could still see me, even though he was wrapping up a bottle for some huge black guy down the end, so I got out my wallet and made a big thing about counting through my cash. ‘I've got money,’ was what I was saying. ‘Don't worry. You'll get paid.’ His big, impassive face showed no sign of having got my message. There was insufficient depth in his eyes to show if he was even looking, or just had his head pointed my way.

      Maybe I was just being paranoid. I turned my attention to the stuff in the chest fridge instead.

      ‘I wouldn't if I were you,’ said a low voice. I didn't straighten, but just swivelled my eyes from side to side. I couldn't see anyone, and it didn't feel as if anyone was behind me. ‘Seriously, I can't advise it,’ the voice added, and I had my hand halfway in my jacket before I realized it was the fridge talking.

      ‘What?’ I said quietly.

      ‘Don't buy the cold goods.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘They aren't cold. I've been broken for six months, and he won't get me fixed. Says it's cold enough outside.’

      ‘You don't agree.’

      ‘See that cream cheese? Been there a month. Another couple of days and it's going to explode. And he won't clear it up. That stain on the side there is from a yoghurt that went critical a month ago.’

      I glanced round to see if the guy was looking, and saw that I was pretty well masked from him by the racks. I leaned on the front of the cooling unit and spoke quietly.

      ‘What can you tell me about him?’

      ‘He's a slob,’ the fridge said. ‘That's all she wrote.’

      ‘Anything else? Like what his problem is?’

      ‘Look, I'm just a fucking fridge. Don't buy the cold goods is all I'm saying.’

      I reached in and grabbed a pot of soft cheese, and then turned away.

      ‘You'll regret it.’

      ‘Probably,’ I agreed.

      The other side of the aisle had household goods, and I picked up a box of large band-aids and a couple of bars of soap. Then after some thought I picked up some disinfectant and the floor cloth that looked least like it was second-hand, before heading down to pay.

      At the counter another random loser was stocking up on the necessities of his life. A pack of cigarettes, a bag of dope and a half bottle of Wild Thyme. Looked like he had a perfect evening ahead of him, but maybe not so good a life. I saw a flicker down by the side of the cash register and glanced to see an ancient eight-inch television. It was hotwired to the insides of a CD ROM player that had lost its casing somewhere down the years. An old porn film flickered and hazed on the screen. The customer kept his eyes on the action while the counter man gave him his change, and then left grinning vaguely at a scene still playing in his head.

      Nice one, I thought. Skim a buck off every bonehead who's too busy watching the skin, and each day you've got a little something extra for yourself.

      I dumped my goods on the counter, running my eyes over what else he had behind there. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing self-evidently dangerous.

      ‘Have you got a bag for that?’ I asked as he started to ring in the goods.

      ‘One dollar.’

      ‘You're kidding me.’

      He shrugged, put his hand on the next item and waited, eyebrows raised but not even looking at me. I got out my wallet and put a one on the counter. I had a way to walk.

      ‘Your fridge is broken,’ I said, looking away from him, wondering what I was doing, why I was rattling this man's cage.

      ‘It's cold enough outside.’

      ‘Thought you'd say that.’ I opened the pot of soft cheese. The grunge inside was covered in half an inch of lurid blue mould. The counter man smiled meaninglessly, eyes dead. Even his lips weren't up to the job. The left side of his mouth barely moved, as if there was some deep damage there.

      ‘So don't eat it.’

      ‘Where can I buy some real milk?’

      ‘It's in the fridge.’

      ‘I'll pass,’ I said, and he got on with making up the bill. Quiet, tinny grunts came from his TV set, and I added: ‘I'll be checking my change.’

      ‘Sure you will,’ he said, reaching under the counter to bring up a battered brown paper bag. I put my purchases into it, trying to make sure the heavy stuff went at the bottom, like Henna had taught me to. Sometimes things like that swam up through the years. Then on an afterthought СКАЧАТЬ