‘Stop it, Martin.’
‘What’s wrong? Don’t you believe me?’
She didn’t say anything.
‘It’s just between the two of us,’ I said. ‘It’ll be like talking a language no one understands. It’ll be our secret —’
Suddenly she was pushing both her hands along my thighs.
I looked at her. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I want you to fuck me.’
‘What?’
‘Fuck me.’
What I’d said, had it excited her? Had she understood me after all? I reached out for her. I kissed her neck, her chin. Her mouth. It took a long time because we’d already done it twice. There was a place she had to get to, though; she wouldn’t let me rest till she was there. It was cold in the room and yet the sweat was running down my face. My hand slid across her rib-cage like an ice-cube on a mirror. When we’d finished, the sheets were damp and there was someone banging on the wall. Nina just banged back.
‘Probably those people who were arguing,’ I said.
‘Pricks,’ she said.
She walked into the bathroom and shut the door. I heard the toilet flush. The bed softened suddenly, drew me deep into itself. I closed my eyes.
Outside, the wind took a handful of rain and flung it against the window.
Chapter 2
Nina had told me she’d be at the Kosminsky by one, but I knew she wouldn’t turn up before two at the earliest. After she finished work she often had a drink with Candy, who was a dancer at the bar. At two-thirty she still hadn’t arrived. She hadn’t called either. I wondered if she’d got tired and gone straight home. I rang her house. Eight seconds of machine-gun fire, then a beep. She’d been getting some weird phone-calls recently, she’d told me. Men just breathing.
I opened my window and looked out. It was zero degrees, the middle of December. Orange light was bouncing off the low cloud-cover; it hung over the grey buildings in an eerie, artificial dome. I watched the late-night traffic moving past the station, the whisper of car tyres in the slush. The people who sold cheap fur coats and sheepskin gloves had left a long time ago. The fast-food stand on the corner was still open, though: pizza, hot dogs, soft drinks, cigarettes. On an impulse I picked up the phone and asked Victor to call me a taxi. Then I put on a hat and coat and left the room.
The car was outside when I reached the street.
I got in. ‘The Elite. It’s a club.’
The driver said he knew it.
I sat hunched over in the back, chewing my bottom lip. It was strange she hadn’t called. Though I hadn’t seen her for almost a week, I’d spoken to her several times. I’d told her about Sprankel and the black paint, and she’d seemed intrigued. We’d arranged for her to come and see my room. She laughed when I said she’d better bring some matches or a torch.
‘So what’s happening at the Elite tonight?’
The last time Victor called me a taxi, the driver didn’t open his mouth once. I’d been hoping for the same man.
‘My girlfriend works there,’ I said.
‘What’s that?’
‘My girlfriend. She works there.’
The driver nodded. ‘I was up for a job there once. Didn’t get it, though.’
My head ached. I wasn’t in the mood for this. If he said something else, I’d lodge a complaint. For talking? Sure. Why not?
But he didn’t. Not for five minutes, anyway.
Then he said, ‘There’s some nice girls working at that place. Real nice.’
I leaned forwards. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Maximilian. People call me Millie.’
‘I don’t mean to be rude, Millie,’ I said, ‘but would you just shut the fuck up and drive?’
Millie giggled. ‘Anything you say, chief.’
I pressed the backs of my fingers against the cool pane of the window. Nina not showing, it seemed like part of the pattern. That night in the Relax Motel, when I was half-asleep, I’d had an idea. It was a missing persons poster. At the top it said, HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN? Underneath there was a big blank space. In fact, most of the poster was blank. There was one line along the bottom: THE INVISIBLE MAN IS MISSING. WHEN HE’S NOT INVISIBLE, HE’S ONE METRE SIXTY-TWO WITH RED HAIR AND A SCAR ON HIS CHIN. I told Loots about it when I saw him next. He thought it was brilliant. He had some posters and leaflets printed, and we spent two nights distributing them in police-stations, at tram-stops, outside shops. Then someone from the radio had picked up on our campaign and broadcasted a series of appeals.
But it hadn’t worked — or, rather, it had worked too well. It had created a kind of atmospheric disturbance. Hundreds of people had contacted the police, claiming to have ‘seen’ The Invisible Man. If a door slammed for no reason. If a picture changed its position on a wall. If leaves moved on a tree, but there wasn’t any wind. Even if things just somehow felt different, in a way you couldn’t quite put your finger on. For instance: a couple in the western suburbs were convinced that The Invisible Man had gatecrashed one of their dinner parties — that was why the mood that night had been so awkward. And then there was the woman who insisted she’d been sleeping with The Invisible Man for the past four years. ‘It’s only weekends,’ she told a journalist. ‘Friday nights, I hear the key turn in the door. I don’t even have to switch the light on. I know it’s him.’ There were hoaxes, too. One man rang the radio station, saying that he was The Invisible Man and that he was calling from a phone-box on the street outside. ‘Which phone-box?’ the DJ asked. The caller laughed. ‘Which one do you think? The empty one, of course.’ The unexplainable was out there, part of everybody’s lives. All they needed was a hook to hang it on.
The taxi clattered over potholes. South central streets: a non-stop fun-fair ride. We were getting close now. Through the steamed-up window I saw a derelict factory, a junk yard, part of a canal.
At last we pulled up outside the club. It didn’t look like much. A one-storey building, the word ELITE in pink neon script above the entrance. Nothing too surprising there.
‘Careful when you get out,’ Millie said. ‘The kerb’s a high one.’
I thanked him, then opened the door. Maybe I’d been too hard on him before. I asked him if he could wait. He said he would.
A helicopter chattered in the sky. As it faded, I heard bass and drums. My stick was in my hand now. Scanning the ground in front of me. Making sweeps. There were times when I used my stick like worry-beads: it was just something to do.
‘What’s up, pal?’
That belligerence, that phoney cool. It snagged on something in me; I felt heat rise, collect in my titanium plate. They get to feel so fucking big, these bouncer types, just because they’re stuck outside some club in a tuxedo.
‘You deaf or something?’
I showed him my white stick. ‘Not deaf, no. Guess again.’
‘You threatening me?’ The bouncer laughed. It was four high-pitched sounds. Like a hinge.
‘I’m not deaf and I’m not threatening you. All right?’
‘So let’s hear it.’
‘I’m looking for Nina. Nina Salenko. She was working here tonight.’
‘Ain’t here now.’
‘Do you know where she went?’
‘Nope.’
‘Is Candy here?’
‘Now what would you be wanting Candy for? You got a sweet tooth or something?’ That laugh again. Bad joke, too.
I could have broken his nose with my stick. I could have got Nina to get her friend Robert Kolan to kill him. I could have reported him to the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons’ Association. But I didn’t do any of that.