Altered States Read Online Free PDF Page B

note.’
    ‘No chance of the case being switched?’
    ‘No, I put the case straight in the safe afterwards. Besides, the notes in the case were the actual ones I counted because I marked the top note of each deck as I went through. It just defies logic. He must have been some kind of magician or something – I don’t know.’
    Conner attempted to garner an accurate description of the man.
    ‘How old was this man?’
    ‘Err, mid-thirties...’
    ‘Okay.’ Conner jotted it down.
    ‘...to late-forties.’
    ‘Riiight.’ He amended his notes. ‘Height?’
    ‘Average.’
    ‘Build?’
    ‘Kind of ... medium.’
    ‘Excellent. Hair?’
    ‘Dark-slash-fair.’
    ‘Slash bald?’
    ‘Sorry?
    ‘Never mind.’
    Conner didn’t dare to wish that the office had CCTV. By the state of the establishment it was quite remarkable that even the walls managed to perform their intended function, let alone any complicated surveillance equipment doing so. Besides, he knew this kind of outfit was designed to service a certain class of clientele, those who did not like their picture being taken.
    Conner plodded his way back from the hospital. It was a few miles home but he didn’t mind the walk; he walked pretty much everywhere. Walking offered high-quality thinking time. Plus he found all other modes of transport in the city pretty much unbearable. Grid-locked roads. Crowded subways. Slimy taxi drivers.
    After thirty minutes of walking and thinking, something finally struck him. It wasn’t so much an idea; more of a ... bat.
    Moments later he came to, slumped against a wall with a baseball bat thrust to the centre of his chest. At the other end of the bat was a small-framed individual wearing a kid’s toy mask. Or maybe it was just a kid wearing a kid’s mask. Through his haze he couldn’t be sure.
    He shivered slightly from shock and breathed heavily. His face had hit the wall on the way down and he felt a trickle of blood from just above his eyebrow begin its journey down his face, following the tracks of his tears. He had not yet mustered the energy for even an expletive before the bat-wielder spoke. The voice was disguised by a cheap synthesiser in the mask.
    ‘Leave Bigby alone,’ it said with tinny resonance that clawed at Conner’s pounding head. ‘Or things will get much worse. For you. For everyone.’
    He was too sluggish to respond before a final prod from the bat signalled the departure of its owner. As he watched the figure walk away he realised that there was something odd about the walker’s gait, but he couldn’t place what it was. And he knew this wasn’t the time to care.
    Slowly and somewhat apprehensively, Conner reached up to examine the damage to the back of his head. Duly his fingers returned to rest before his eyes, and they were completely covered in ... nothing. In fact, the only fresh blood offered by his head was from the cut above his eye. Last time he checked, his skull wasn’t made from titanium, which meant that the bat couldn’t have been made from wood or anything hard. What kind of thug’s weapon-of-choice is a rubber bat?
    Another riddle that could wait. Getting home was his only immediate priority. He stumbled to the nearest busy street and hailed a cab.
    At home he nursed a bump on his head, a cut over his eye, and what remained of his pride. He longed for someone else to be doing the nursing. He’d had a lot thrown at him in the last few days and it suddenly felt that in this game of dodge-ball that people called life, everyone else was standing on the other side of the court. He wanted someone to be on his side, for someone to just give a damn.
    He placed the mantelpiece photographs face down once more and slumped back onto the sofa to begin rolling a salvia joint. The dried leaves of Salvia divinorum – literally ‘sage of the seers’ – act as an intense but short-lived hallucinogen. Most people don’t get on with salvia. Many find it frightening. But paranoia was not an issue