When Gravity Fails Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Why not? You know where?”
    “Hassan’s shop?”
    “You go straight back through the curtain. There’s a storeroom behind there. Go through the storeroom, through the back door into the alley. You’ll see an iron door in the opposite wall. It’ll be locked, but they’ll be expecting you. You won’t have to knock. Get there on time, Nikki.”
    “I will. And thanks, Marîd.”
    “The hell with thanks. I want my hundred kiam now.”
    She looked startled. Maybe I’d sounded a little too tough; too bad. “Can’t I give it to you after—”
    “ Now, Nikki.”
    She took some money out of her hip pocket and counted off a hundred. “Here.” There was a new coldness between us.
    “Give me another twenty for Papa’s little gift. And you’re responsible for Hassan’s baksheesh, too. I’ll see you tonight.” And then I got out of that place before the rampant craziness began to seep into my skull.
    I went home. I hadn’t slept enough, I had a splitting headache, and the edge of the tri-phet glow had disappeared somewhere in the summer afternoon. Yasmin was still asleep, and I climbed onto the mattress next to her. The drugs wouldn’t let me nap, but I really wanted to have a little piece and quiet with my eyes shut. I should have known better; as soon as I relaxed, the tri-phets began thrumming in my head louder than ever. Behind my closed eyelids, the red darkness began to flash like a strobe light. I felt dizzy; then I imagined patterns of blue and dark green, swirling like microscopic creatures in a drop of water. I opened my eyes again to get rid of the strobing. I felt involuntary twitches in my calf muscles, in my hand, in my cheek. I was strung tighter than I thought: no rest for the wicked.
    I stood up again and crumpled the note I’d left for Yasmin. “I thought you wanted to go out today.” she said sleepily.
    I turned around. “I did go out. Hours ago.”
    “What time is it?”
    “About three o’clock.”
    “ Yaa salaam! I’m supposed to be at work at three today!”
    I sighed. Yasmin was famous all over the Budayeen for being late for just about everything. Frenchy Benoit, the owner of the club where Yasmin worked, fined her fifty kiam if she came in even a minute late. That didn’t get Yasmin to move her pretty little ass; she took her sweet old time, paid Frenchy the fifty nearly every day, and made it back in drinks and tips the first hour. I’ve never seen anyone who could separate a sucker from his money so fast. Yasmin worked hard, she wasn’t lazy. She just loved to sleep. She would have made a great lizard, basking on a hot rock in the sun.
    It took her five minutes to leap out of bed and get dressed. I got an abstract kiss that landed off-center, and she was going out the door, digging in her purse for the module she’d use at work. She called something over her shoulder in her barbaric Levantine accent.
    Then I was alone. I was pleased with the turn my fortunes had taken. I hadn’t been this flush in many months. As I was wondering if there was something I wanted, something I could blow my sudden wealth on, the image of Bogatyrev’s bloodstained blouse superimposed itself over the spare, shabby furnishings of my apartment. Was I feeling guilty? Me? The man who walked through the world untouched by its corruption and its crude temptations. I was the man without desire, the man without fear. I was a catalyst, a human agent of change. Catalysts caused change, but in the end they remained unchanged themselves. I helped those who needed help and had no other friends. I participated in the action, but was never stung. I observed, but kept my own secrets. That’s how I always thought of myself. That’s how I set myself up to get hurt.
    In the Budayeen—hell, in the whole world, probably—there are only two kinds of people: hustlers and marks. You’re one or the other. You can’t act nice and smile and tell everybody that you’re just going to sit on the sidelines. Hustler or