Kismet Read Online Free Page B

another sweet in his mouth and leaned over to the music system. When he pressed the
on
button it began shining and winking in umpteen different colours like a little fairground. He pushed the only CD lying around into it. Some kind of techno gabba delivered in a poofter sing-song tone. Slibulsky let it play. At full volume. I couldn’t make him out.
    ‘Switch that crap off, Slibulsky!’
    Head nodding forward and back, he shouted through the din, ‘Wait a moment! Listen to this! It’s not so bad!’
    But I wasn’t waiting. And since I was under fire from four bass loudspeakers, and what with images of exploding faces in the back of my mind and two bodies in the boot, and the flashing lights of the music system in front of me, I felt for a moment that I was racing straight to hell, I didn’t press the
off
button but took my foot off the accelerator and kicked the fairground to pieces.
    ‘… Are you crazy?’
    ‘You’re the one who’s crazy! “Listen to this!” I think I’m going nuts!’
    For a while there was no sound but the quiet purring of the engine.
    Finally Slibulsky cleared his throat and said coolly, ‘It wasn’t my idea to shoot a couple of guys down and bury their bodies. But that’s what’s happened, we have it all there in our heads, and it won’t go away just because we stick to the Highway Code. You don’t want to talk about technical questions, like for instance how no cop with his VW banger could ever overtake us in this car, and you don’t want a little music, however horrible, to give you something else to think about – but maybe I do. So for all I care you’re a super-killer who shoots a man and then settles down for a nice little nap – speaking for myself, after all that death I’d like something a little livelier!’
    I didn’t react. I stared straight ahead, gritting my teeth, and meticulously stuck to my fifty kph as if I could prove something that way. It was a fact that driving at such a slow speed on an empty, straight, well-surfaced road was a real strain on the nerves. I carefully stepped on the gas. When we were driving at eighty I’d reached the point where I could mutter, ‘Sorry.’
    Slibulsky shook his head. ‘Oh, what the hell!’ And after a pause, ‘You know what would be a good idea now?’
    ‘No, what?’
    ‘A good screw.’
    ‘What …?’
    ‘To take your mind off things,’ said Slibulsky. ‘As I always say. What you need is a steady girlfriend. And don’t go saying, “Oh, Slibulsky,” again. I bet if you had someonewaiting for you at home you wouldn’t be so … so edgy.’
    ‘Edgy? When we have a shoot-out behind us and two dead bodies in the boot!’
    ‘Like I said, you need something to take your mind off it. And there’s going to be more evenings when you need that too.’
    ‘Oh, really?’
    ‘I mean it, seriously.’
    ‘Slibulsky! If you ask me, we’ve got plenty of other things to think about tonight, we can leave my private life out of it.’
    Slibulsky looked at me and scratched his ear. ‘You always do.’
    ‘I always do what?’
    ‘Leave your private life out of it.’
    I briefly turned my head and caught his challenging look.
    I wondered what Gina thought of being described as a good screw to take his mind off things in the evening. If Slibulsky said things like that in front of her. And if she was listening. Gina didn’t often listen when Slibulsky was talking. There had to be some reason why two people with such different routines had stuck together for over ten years, and still seemed relatively happy. Gina was an archaeologist, and paid almost no attention to anything that wasn’t to do with ancient potsherds. Whether Slibulsky was in jail or making millions with his ice-cream carts, she was always flying off to assorted desert countries, digging in the sand and discussing the results at congresses all over the world. She sat over her microscopes and dust samples at home, and when Slibulsky had visits from thugs