Read Online The Writing on the Wall by Gunnar Staalesen - Free Book Online Page A

was as though a caste mark had been daubed on my forehead, the number fifty flashing on and off, on and off so everyone could see what team I played for. The only individuals who didn’t honour me with a look were those in the middle of a game. The others soon lost interest, even though I couldn’t help noticing that some of them cast furtive glances in my direction every time I moved, unsure what organisation I might represent.
    The games machines were marshalled into four rows, two facing each of the sidewalls and two back to back in the middle of the place. Once I’d grown accustomed to the light I soon got my bearings in the rest of the room.
    Behind the counter at the far end sat a great lump of a chap in his late thirties, with bulging biceps beneath the originally white but now ketchup-spotted chef’s smock. He had a mousy little moustache, a cigarette stub at the corner of his mouth and a bad-tempered, jaded look which did not bode well for would-be troublemakers. He was reading a paper in the light from the open back door. As I came in, he threw an expectant look over the edge of the folded newspaper, his only reaction being a hint of suspicion , causing an involuntary twitch at the corner of his mouth before he could control it.
    In front of the counter were a couple of bar stools and in the corner at the far end I could just make out two unoccupied round tables. Somewhere between fifteen and twenty youths were gathered round the games machines, four of five of them girls. One of the girls was playing a machine with a friend. It was Astrid Nikolaisen.
    I jingled a few loose coins in my pocket and stood at one of the machines, looking at the trailers boasting the merits of the game, supposedly tempting me to throw myself into battle to find and release the abducted bank director’s daughter somewhere in the ghetto of a large American city such as New York.
    The block letters of the title were lit up in garish colours like in a secondrate fifties B-movie: RANSOM!
    ‘Gonna play?’
    I looked down at the young lad who had come and stood beside me. He had long, wispy locks of smooth fair hair. ‘Yeah, maybe. Can you show me what to do?’
    ‘Got any money?’
    ‘It’s on me.’
    He edged me gently aside and pointed. His shiny blue bomber jacket had a big green and orange dragon on the back. ‘Stick the coins in there. One player or two?’
    ‘Er … one.’
    He grinned. ‘It’ll be just me, then.’
    ‘You’re going to be fighting against heavy odds.’
    ‘Bah! Know where they pop up from, don’t I?’
    And he did know. After choosing which character he wanted to be, his weapons and which qualities would be the most important (brute force, intelligence, speed), he was suddenly in a back street in the ghetto. Armed gangsters popped up all over the place, from behind the corners of buildings and dustbins, at upper floor windows and from manhole covers. The lad shot them down at a rate of knots, and the points total soared in the top right-hand corner before further hordes sprang out.
    As he stood there playing, and I pretended to look on, I kept watch out of the corner of my eye to see whether anything worth noting was happening anywhere else in the room.
    The man behind the counter was once more engrossed in the paper. A couple of new players had come in now; a few others stood fumbling with their money to see whether they had enough for another go.
    Suddenly I met Astrid Nikolaisen’s eyes, as, pulling a face, she turned away from the machine now flashing GAME OVER at her.
    It was a few seconds before she recognised me. Then she set off in my direction with a great yawn as though keen to show off her new fillings. ‘What the bleeding hell’s this? Are you tailing me or what?’
    The man behind the counter looked up and put the paper aside.
    Calmly I said: ‘Take it easy. It’s a free country, isn’t it?’
    ‘Not for the likes of you!’ She turned towards the counter. The guy who’d been sitting