Blood Cell Read Online Free PDF Page B

connect with people more than he did. The eighteenth treated him like weapon, like he must be treated delicately, which didn’t bother him most of the time. It was when people talked to him like he was retarded that got under his skin. He knew that even on the outside, people would treat him this way, but still held to the hope that somewhere outside there was a woman who would see the honourable man underneath the hulking convict.
    He knew that the Eighteenth only talked to him because sometimes he would do them favours, like scare someone or hold someone back while the gang beat someone up. But now, they were ignoring him. It had something to do with that new guy, Leo. Thomas did not like being cut out, and he especially did not like being alone.
    Sitting alone at lunch for the third day, the ninth straight meal, Thomas decided that something had to be done about this Leo situation.
     
    *****
     
    On a passenger train passing through a place that was either Belgium or France, a pale passenger with black hair appeared at the sleeping car. He hadn’t a ticket, and he wasn’t on the manifest, but there he was. It was the dead of night, and every compartment was occupied by a sleeping traveller or two. Everyone was asleep, despite the noise that was still coming from the couple in the third car. They had been at it for hours and were still going.
    The stowaway could smell them.
    He dragged his fingertips along the smooth plastic walls as he walked, or more accurately floated, down the corridor. It was such a disappointment. Bland white plastic. At least the old trains, slow as they were, had some style. They had mouldings and gold leaf, brass fixtures and cast-iron grates. It used to be that you could make new friends on a train, and get to know them over several days. This had always been the stowaway’s preferred method. He liked to know people, to weed out the bad apples. But now trains moved so quickly, and people were so isolated, he’d never really know any of the passengers.
    But that was OK. If he couldn’t find the bad apples, he’d settle for the noisy ones. They’d had their fun, and now the stowaway would have his.
    A week later, on the other side of the Atlantic, the stowaway sat down at a table. He wore black. The walls were covered in century-old hardwood, and the room smelled of cigars smoked decades earlier. The man at the table could even smell the familiar aftershave of an old friend who had died nearly fifty years earlier.
    A second man sat across from him. This man wore a blue suit and a silk tie. He was a very notable politician by the name of Mr. Banks. Mr. Banks wasn’t running this country, not yet, but he had paid his dues and his time would come. But for now, he was a servant come to hear from the master.
    Mr. Banks waited patiently for the man in black to speak.
    “You seem to have done a fine job with the old club. She’s as beautiful as any other time I visited.”
    Banks nodded, and spoke deferentially. “Thank you, sir. I trust that your flight was—“
    “Oh yes. Your precautions were exceeded only by your hospitality.”
    “Thank you sir.”
    “Banks, we haven’t spoken for a while, and I would like to tell you a story. After I have told it, you will understand why I came here.”
    The man in black told his tale. When it ended, Mr. Banks was licking his lips. He nodded to his master, and left the room.

CHAPTER FOUR
     
    John Norris forgot his lunch. He was already halfway backed out of his driveway when he realized it. He told himself that remembering now was better than remembering on the highway, but he still felt like he was going senile. Norris wasn’t a man to be forgetful. Everything was always in order for John Norris, and a string of little memory slips was worrisome. Norris shifted into drive and pulled back into his driveway. He had to turn the engine off and take his keys because he knew his wife, Olivia, locked the door as soon as he was out in the morning. He was