Read Online Feelings of Fear by Graham Masterton - Free Book Online

don’t like the food.”
    I slid the chicken broth across the table toward me and picked up alarge silver spoon. I managed to drink almost half, and finished up by dunking my bread in it.
    â€œWomen have had it their own way for far too long,” said Jan. “What do they think we are? We work every hour that God sends us, and then they spit in our faces.”
    â€œHave you ever had a serious relationship with a woman?” I asked him.
    His plate of mussel shells were taken away and half a roast chicken was placed in front of him. He proceeded to tear off the leg and the wing, sucking his fingers to get rid of the grease. “I loved a woman just once. Really loved her, I mean. I think it happens only once in everybody’s lifetime. Just like Maria and Hoete.”
    I was given a veal cutlet in dark brown breadcrumbs and thin fried potatoes. A large bowl of
waterzooi
was set in Hoete’s place. Either the waiters and the maitre-d’ were used to Jan’s imaginary lunch companion, and humored him – if he was prepared to pay for it, what did it matter? – or else there really
was
somebody there, and I couldn’t see them.
    Over coffee, Jan took out a small pale cigar and offered me one. We both sat and smoked for a while in silence. Then Jan said, “Hoete wants to ask you a favor.”
    â€œOh, yes?”
    â€œWell, he wants to visit Maria this evening … have a chat with her. Try to make her see sense about this money thing.”
    â€œWhat does that have to do with me?”
    â€œYou’re impartial, that’s the point. Kind of a referee. If you could go along to make sure that nobody loses their temper. I know he’d appreciate it.”
    I looked again at the empty chair. “I don’t really think so.”
    But Jan leaned across the table and took hold of my arm. He was so close that I could see his gold molars, right at the back. “There are times when you doubt your eyes, aren’t there? There are times when you think that you might be going mad.”
    I shook my head. “Hoete doesn’t exist, Jan. You’re making him up. I don’t know why. But what I
do
know is that I’m not going to go along with him tonight to see his ex-wife, because if I do, I’ll be going on my own.”
    Jan stared at me for a long, long moment and then released my arm. “He doesn’t exist? What do you mean, he doesn’t exist? If he doesn’t exist, then who ate his
waterzooi
?”
    He pointed to the bowl in front of Hoete’s empty chair. There was nothing in it but two or three chicken bones and a slice of carrot. I turned around, and even though the light was against me, and the restaurant was already clouded with cigarette-smoke, I saw a thin dark man in a snapbrim hat making his way toward the entrance.
    â€œThere was nobody here,” I told Jan.
    He gave me an odd, puckered smile. “Nobody is often the most dangerous person there is. If I were you, I would go to Maria’s apartment tonight, just to make sure that he doesn’t get up to any mischief.”
    With that, he pushed a black-and-white photograph across the table. A striking girl with high cheekbones and dark hair and a mouth that looked as if she just had finished kissing.
    â€œThis is her? This is Maria?”
    Jan nodded. “She’s something, isn’t she?”
    I turned the photograph over. On the back was scrawled
6 Ster Straat, De Keyserlei, 2100.
I took it and read it but I still wasn’t happy.
    â€œSo where do
you
fit into all of this?” I asked him.
    â€œHaven’t you guessed?” he said, still smiling.
    I didn’t go back to the bank that afternoon. I called to say I was down with the grippe, and then I went back to my room at the Novotel on Luithagensteenweg. I emptied two miniature Johnnie Walkers into one glass and sat on the bed watching Asterix cartoons with the sound turned down, trying to get my