Rules of the Game. James Frey

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      Maccabee runs a straight razor over his bare scalp. He swishes the blade in a copper bowl half-filled with a stew of water and black stubble and soap. Next to the bowl is a pair of scissors covered by a pile of thick hair. He squints at his reflection in a clouded mirror that’s propped against the wall. He’s never shaved his head before and he likes the way it feels. The smoothness, the lightness. Also, with his bruises and his crooked nose and his physique, the baldness makes him look like a real badass.

      Which of course he is.

      “What do you think, Sky Key?”

      The girl sits next to him. She leans into his side. Her body is warm, and he feels comforted by it. He wonders if she is comforted in turn.

      Probably not.

      Her legs are tucked up and her arms are wrapped over her knees. She doesn’t answer his question. He briefly touches her hair. It’s thick and soft, the hair of a girl who’s been well cared for.

      If he’s going to get her to the end, he’ll have to take good care of her too.

      He passes her a bowl of rice and lentils, a stiff circle of dal balanced on top. “Here. Have some more food.”

      She digs in with her bare hands and eats. Her appetite is strong and, so far, insatiable.

      They are in an abandoned roadside hut 130 kilometers west and north of Kolkata. It’s midmorning. The landscape outside is lush and verdant. Jungle surrounds the hut, but fields of jute and potatoes lie less than a kilometer to the north. Sporadic cars and buses pass on the road, but other than that there are no signs of people here.

      Which is good. Early that morning he and Sky Key wandered through a shopping center west of Kolkata buying supplies. Rice, soap, candles, batteries, towels, a sewing kit, a small butane camp stove with a liter of fuel. Baby wipes, pull-up diapers for Sky Key to sleep in, a blanket, and three changes of clothing for the girl. He also lucked into finding one of those cloth child carriers that straps over the shoulders and holds the kid tightly on the back. At a pharmacy he bought generic ibuprofen, amoxicillin, Cipro, zolpidem, and a small first aid kit with an extra bottle of iodine. Back at the hotel he packed all of this into a new knapsack as well as into the stolen Suzuki’s touring panniers, one of which blessedly contained a SIG 226 and two magazines.

      The same kind of gun An Liu had fired at them back in the cemetery.

      It was then that he realized he’d had the good fortune to steal An Liu’s bike.

      He checked the SIG’s decocker and stuffed it into the top of his pants.

      Throughout the morning he’d dealt with merchants and for the most part they were nice to him. He had to pay a small fortune for everything, though—prices were going through the roof under the threat of Abaddon, even here on the other side of the world where the effects of the asteroid would be less urgent. The fact that he wasn’t Indian didn’t make things any cheaper. Regardless, none of the shopkeepers recognized him as a Player, which was fortunate.

      But then they stopped for breakfast at a dosa stall, and as they sat at a plastic picnic table the owner turned up the news on the small television mounted over the counter. He gabbed on in Bengali with one of his workers, no doubt talking about all the craziness happening in the world, while stills from An Liu’s video clicked past one by one on the screen. And that’s when Maccabee saw his own face, clear as day.

      He didn’t worry about it at first. He was banged up from all the fights he’d been through and he didn’t think that the shop owner was paying close enough attention to make the connection. But he was. He turned on Maccabee and Sky Key in a flash, pointed a finger, started yelling. Maccabee stood, his mouth half-full of curried potatoes, and hoisted up the girl. The man stepped around the counter with a long kitchen knife. Maccabee backed away, swallowed his food, lifted his shirt to reveal the butt of the pistol, and said, “You don’t need to get hurt, my friend. None of us do.”

      Stunned, the man quieted for a few moments as Maccabee and Sky Key left. He resumed yelling as soon as they were out on the street, and people began gawking, but the pair made it onto the bike in front of the hotel and Maccabee got Sky Key into the child carrier and they whisked out of there.

      They rode all morning, stopping once to buy some rice and lentils at a food stall. Not long ago he caught sight of this hut flickering through the trees. Sky Key had been squirming for the previous 10 kilometers, and Maccabee had to piss, so he pulled over. He hid the bike in the bush and crept toward the corrugated metal building, the SIG pistol in hand. The hut was empty of СКАЧАТЬ