Nine Read Online Free PDF

white sheet, the thin fabric on her body like a second, looser skin. Her legs, ass—everything visible, just a little blurred. He sat on the edge of the bed and patted the ass. She murmured and stuck her head out, a peroxide blonde. She
turned over, her breasts pointing straight at the ceiling. He covered her left nipple with his hand.
    â€œCome on, Porkie, I’m not even awake yet.”
    â€œThen sleep. Who’s stopping you.” He kicked off his slippers and lay next to her. He tried to roll on top, but she slipped a hand out and pinched his roll of belly flesh.
    â€œGive it up, Porkie. Tell me who that was. I heard. Or was I dreaming?”
    He put his hand between her legs. The sheet made rays like drapery representing the sun.
    â€œJust a guy. Paweł.”
    â€œWhat did he want?”
    â€œMoney. They all want money.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œI gave him Mr. Max’s phone number.”
    â€œYou’re heartless, Porkie.”
    â€œI could have sicked Sheikh on him.” He moved closer, kissed her neck. Tried to throw his left thigh over her leg.
    â€œGive it up,” she said.
    â€œPlease . . .”
    â€œDid you shave?”
    â€œYes. And I showered.”
    â€œThen you can do the thing I like.”
    Bolek slid off the bedding and crawled to the foot of the bed. He lifted the hem of the sheet and pulled it over his head. He looked like an old-fashioned photographer. Three fire trucks raced down Ostrobramska. The blue magnesium of their lights tore the river of traffic in two. An old woman in a baby Fiat, afraid, rode up onto the sidewalk. Syl’s eyes were wide open. It was a game she played: to keep them open as long as she could, till they shut on their own.
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    Paweł stepped out of the elevator, adjusting his eyes. In the semidark he thought about how he was safe as long as it was quiet and the elevator was still going down. No one would see him, no one would hear him. This floor was empty. Some Chinese had rented it, but all they did was put new locks on the doors. Below, life murmured and clattered. He could even smell people. The kitchens in those apartments were cramped; at dinnertime the women put the chain on and opened the door a crack. He took out a cigarette, lit a match. A gloom hung at the end of the hall, as if dust were rising from the floor, though the air was still. Old walls do that. The match was reflected in the pane of the door leading to the outside gallery, but there were no windows there, only a wall and the black overhang of the roof. The flame died. He put the cigarette back in the pack. He moved down the hall almost by touch. The sound of his steps carried far in the building. Six steps, a landing, six more, and a speck of light. He felt for the door with his hand and knocked softly.
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    The owner wasn’t in—sweating somewhere else. An hour ago he had closed the door behind him and taken the stairs down. Afraid of the elevator, its closed space pressing in on the body and brain from all six sides, crushing them into a hot cube from which blood would spurt. This was how his imagination worked. He had run down six floors to feel the rush of cool air on his face, pushed open the steel door, which slammed behind him as if the whole goddamn building would collapse, but no one on the street noticed. He was dressed in gray. Jacket, sweater, pants; only his shoes were black. They had not been polished in a long time. On Marszałkowska he was swept by the
windinto the underground passage near the hotel. Here the fretful neon equalized everyone, the ugly and the beautiful, rich and poor. The dead glow covered the skin like powder, getting into body and clothing like a bad smell or old age. No shadow, no pity Everyone swimming like upright fish. Jacek (that’s right, I remember now, his name was Jacek) turned left, passed the tram stop for Żoliborz, passed the exit for the Metropol Hotel and the Aleje