Read Online The Maggot People by Henning Koch - Free Book Online Page B

maggots in his mouth and made himself swallow them. An enormous wave of well-being ran through him; he felt himself ejaculate strongly into his trousers. A phantom ejaculation. Christ!

15 .
    From now on I have to be cleverer, he told himself. I’ve been driving round in Ariel’s rusty van and the registration must be flagged on every police computer in the country. I’ve been leaving it parked in the street like a fool while I get drunk, and I almost paid for it.
    I’m alive. But does my life really matter at all?
    What the hell am I doing here?
    All day he idled on a disused roof: Cannes lay in disordered profusion all round, palm trees in the squares, café tables invading the pavements, cars parked profusely along the narrow lanes. From the rooftop he also had an excellent view of the Transit, smeared with starling droppings, skulking in the shade of a palm tree. Police technicians had been at the scene since mid-morning, putting up a screen and cordoning off the entire area. They removed all of its contents in black plastic bin liners. A flatbed truck came and picked up the whole damned thing with a pneumatic arm, then drove away.
    Later that afternoon, Michael went to find the woman Günter had tipped him off about.
    Janine’s apartment lay right above a busy restaurant with outside tables in a little flowery square with an ugly, squat war memorial and trickling fountain. As he approached he saw her on the first-floor balcony, basking in the sun like a daubed tropical bird on its nest—wearing an unbuttoned camouflage-pattern boiler suit and a turquoise bikini top encrusted with rhinestones. She peered down at him over the balcony railing, a tall glass of what looked like a Campari soda in her hand. Most of her face was hidden behind a pair of outsized, mirrored sunglasses. “Who are you and what do you want?” she called out before he’d even got close to the doorbell.
    He looked up. “I got your details from Günter. He’s a four-footed guy from Rome. Excommunicated.”
    She looked frightened and dropped her voice. “Oh, come on! I don’t know you, I don’t know him. Just because I live above a restaurant people think they can hit on me.”
    â€œI only want to come inside for a few minutes. If I’d come to arrest you I would have brought a friend.” He opened his jacket to indicate he was not wearing a holster.
    Her shades glittered down at him for a full minute. He waited for her decision. A police siren edged closer. Stepping into the recessed doorway, he pressed himself against the wall. The door buzzed and he quickly pushed it open and moved into the cool gloom, standing there waiting for his imaginary pulse to slow down.
    The door squeezed itself shut behind him and he walked up the single flight.
    Janine was waiting for him in the doorway, then, without a word, showed him into an apartment almost entirely devoid of furniture. She was clearly a big believer in blowup cushions and paper lanterns. The only thing of substance in there was a leather briefcase, large and fat and black. Everything else was inflatable.
    He stepped into the living room, steeped in the sort of silence that follows a hastily evacuated party. Palls of smoke rose erectly from cigarettes left in scattered ashtrays, and six blue Siamese kittens sitting in line fixed him with their blue eyes until one of them made a rash attack on a cushion, which deflated with a hissing sound.
    Janine turned to Michael. “This won’t take a minute.” Then, calling out towards the back of the adjoining room: “Take him!” Two men charged out, sending the kittens scurrying in all directions. One of them pinned him down, the other used a pair of box-cutters to slice into his stomach. Michael kept his mouth shut, fearing that they might shoot him if he resisted. Peering down, what he saw would have made him retch if he had guts to retch with. His abdomen was open like