Painkillers by Simon Ings Read Free Book Online Page A

tyre?
    'Which is it to be?' Money said.
    I told her no.
    Never, but never, make a grand exit. Be quiet, dignified, melt into the background, fade gently away then if something goes wrong you won't make a prat of yourself. They rang me a taxi but I didn't want to linger there a moment more than I had to. I said I'd wait outside and get some air before the ride; I said a few other things as well, and I don't think they were sorry to see me go.
    They swung the door on me and I headed down the gravel drive between rhododendrons and untidy ornamental firs. It was a clear night, and cold, and the air hit the back of my throat like menthol. The moon, a fat crescent, lit my way to the gate. A partial eclipse had taken a bite out of its bottom corner; it hung there, precise and asymmetrical, like a carefully turned engine part. I cast my mind back, trying to recall when I had last seen the stars. A summer night beside the Cam, in my first summer vacation. Sleeping under a net on a small game reserve in Zimbabwe. The night the electricity failed in the resort town of Buzios, during my six-month affair with KPMG Rio... I'd got as far as the open gates when the security light from Hell came on again to light my way. Even reflected off the gateposts, the glare was unbearable. I winced, shielding my dark-adapted eyes, and tripped on something hard and unyielding.
    I threw my hands out to break my fall and crashed like a tree. Something big and sharp razored my palm. I sat up, dragged in a burning breath, and held my hand up to the moonlight. There was a glass shard there, a big one, sticking up out of a rising pool of blood. Black blood filled the basin of my palm and dribbled off.
    Shock made me stupid: I pulled the shard out. I must have screamed, but no one came to the door. I got up and saw what had tripped me. A metal plate: the gates locked into it when they were shut. I catted. Saliva ran down my chin. I wiped it away with my good hand. It smelled of spirits and fish and soy sauce. Blinking against the harsh light, I staggered back to the house. I rang the bell and waited, studying the wound in the light from the glass-panelled door. Bits of shattered glass were still buried there. I could see them glittering - bright flecks. Or was it bone?
    The door opened. 'Adam,' Zoe said, then, 'Jesus.'
    'I fell,' I said.
    'Let me look,' said Zoe. She took my hand in both of hers.
    'Ow.'
    'What is that? Glass?'
    'Can I come in?'
    'Or is it grit?'
    'Ow.'
    'Come on, then,' she sighed, and led me down the hall.
    There were voices coming from the kitchen. Music and screaming. Full Auto Angel through a cheap speaker.
    The kitchen wasn't a bit like the rest of the house. The red floor tiles were lifting. The table was topped with sickly yellow Formica.
    All I need is a tissue,' I said. 'I'll take the cab to casualty.'
    Money was clearing up after our meal. There were garlic skins and fish-guts all over the chopping block.
    'Don't be silly,' she said. 'Zoe, get me the first-aid box.'
    The TV sat on the top of the fridge.
    Brin was tied to a table. A girl in a bikini and RayBans was whipping him with a car aerial. The scene was cut to look like a special effect.
    In a moment the door would burst in under a hail of shotgun pellets. Cantonese extras in Versace jeans and blue sweatbands identifying them as members of the secret Order of the Paper Chrysanthemum would steal in like ghosts, silence the girl with a touch, and pass through. Brian would not appear again until the third reel, posing as a wheelchair-bound cripple. Taken apart and reassembled, the wheelchair would in Brian's hands make a primitive but impressively loud heavy machine gun, in a scene praised by cult film critic Kim Newman for its 'exuberant post-Besson pastiche', and later analysed shot by shot in a long behind-the-scenes exclusive in Fangoria magazine. Zoe came back in with a Tupperware cake-box and a bottle of medicinal alcohol. Money dipped the bottle over a cotton swab and