, but none of it — none of it — ever so much as touches the sides — as the Merc’ turns left the Yank’s face turns towards Genie and. .’e screws me out. Words start pouring from his dry lips, Amity, y’know, means friendship, and he not busy bein’ born is already fly-in’ — you dig that point, right? Fly-in’ on a Fudgesicle through the sky to land, oh. . I dunno, mebbe up in the Smoke or down in the borderlands. . I dunno either, Genie says, I mean, I s’pose so. — He accelerates, choking her with the inertia of her own tongue — his spiel bubbles in her ears: We could fly there, oooh takes ’bout half a day if we go by my dragonfly here — sure, it ain’t Spain, but, as dead-headed roses say, what’s inna name? ’Sides — he pokes another button so that hot breath pants against her tights — the wind’s in the right quarter, who knows you might even be my. . — Genie knows she needs to. . get a fucking grip, but she can’t — she keeps sliding down deeper into shocked numbness. All she can see is the Yank’s dingy teeth eating the past, chewing it all up. But, like any food eaten when you’re on smack, it don’t digest, only lies there in the stomach: crisp and hard and stuck together with chocolatey sentiment. — Genie sees Jeanie standing outside the cottage with Hughie and Debbie, all three of them have their little suitcases packed and Gregor Gruber drives up in a Merc’. . what’s only got two doors — strange for such a big, flash car. Here he is, the man that’s meant to be their father, come to drive them across Europe to visit with his mutti in Vienna for their summer hols. . as he always does. Only this time it’s diff erent: Mumsie takes the Tupperware box full of cornflake crispies Jeanie’s made for the journey and hands it to Debbie. Not you, she says, you’re not going this time, you’re staying here with me — I want the company. She puts her hand on Jeanie’s head and her nails are. . thorns. The others get in, Gregor slams the boot, and they drive off. A bit of gravel pings Jeanie in the thigh. . they didn’t so much as wave or look back . . — Hand job’s a tenner, she gasps, blow one twenny — straight sex is fifteen, no rubber’s twenny-five. Circling his hand again so the Merc’ noses into Endymion Road, the Yank says, I’ve done with all the lies, and Genie realises he must’ve picked girls up off the Drive before — because this is one of the spots where the punters often bring them. He takes the slip road into the park, then turns off this into the dead end leading to the dead railway line. The Yank stops the car and says, It’s kinda like I’ve woken from a long sleep filled with crazy dreams — y’unnerstand, hon? You get me? He turns towards her, his hands kneading his features. You get me, he groans, the moon she flew down to me through cloudy battle grounds of red and brown, and she did it to me, ooh-ooh! But it was all in my mind, see? I’m awake now and everything’s copacetic — ’cept for this — he grinds his fists into his eyes — I’m an old man now and I don’t want your filthy cunt or any other whore’s. — The door catch flaps uselessly in her hand — she’d lunge across him if she had the strength. The Yank kills the engine and looks at Genie — she looks back, her knickers. . are wringin’ — I so know ’is type . . She puts a blonde wig on the Yank’s balding head, she places a long slim-barrelled gun in his hand, and she remembers David’s precise words: I always think things get a lot realer when the shooters come out . . Yeah, yeah — right . . and what became of David? Genie has heard shady gossip loitering on crim’ lips: he’d been banged up on remand in Brixton — then so-and-so sat behind him when he was ghosted. He’d ended up in Parkhurst — either taking it in the shitter or giving it to Nilsen, the serial killer. Then he hanged himself. Genie sees the crap prison slip-on shoes — sees the shadow-hands they cast on the floor slowly revolving one way, then the other. When they stop. . it’s the hour of ’is death. Genie sees the brave little spider, sent to inspire him. . drowned in ’is piss-pot. David was only the first, already there’ve been others — and there’ll be many more who’ll die. But not Genie — Genie won’t ever die, because if she did. . that’d be the end of everything. That’s what the heavy mob understand — that’s how they. . pull one over on the rest of us. She stutters, P-Please d-don’t hurt me, I’ll do anyfing — anyfing you want. — The Yank pulls a pack of JPS from his overcoat pocket and off ers her one. He lights both cigarettes with a streamlined Ronson: hers dowses furiously, seeking a way out — his is a bung, his words. . leak from it: Sheesh! Ssso very sssorry, kiddo — I kinda forgot myself there. Y’see I’m a traumatised guy, yeah? I got this, uh, sssyndrome, yeah? I’m mostly cool — got my itty-bitty apartment down in Covent Garden. . Cool place. . All set up for me by my good buddy — ’ceptin’ he’s gone now. . Anways, it’s all cool — I go up to the Whittington, talk to the shrinks there. . I get my medication — I eat my medication. It’s all cool so long as I eat my medication — chew it up, yummy-yummy in my tummy. . Sometimes. . well, I kinda forget it. You scared me, Genie says, why’d you lock all the doors? Did I, the Yank says, did I really? I’m so sorry — see, this ain’t my auto, it’s a rental — the money comes in and the money don’t come in. Pop, y’see, he put it all in trust for me, and my brother, Gertie — that’s Gerhard — he’s a kinda capricious fellow, manages the trust: sits on it, then he lets a piece go — sits on it, then lets it go. — The Yank shakes his head wearily, and, crumpling his cigarette in the ashtray, he pushes his head up against the windscreen. — It’s like Gertie can’t forgive me for. . oh, I dunno what he can’t forgive me for. The Yank sings: Wehe dem Fliehenden, Welt hinaus ziehenden! Fremde durchmessenden. . His voice is warm. . and beautiful — but then he switches abruptly to a creepily babyish. . Shirley Temple: No, no, don’t take me down in the root cellar, Johnny! I don’t want my clean dress to get ALL MUSHED UP! Then switches again to a worryingly ordinary voice: Busner, his name is Busner — he’s the man hereabouts. I mean, he don’t wear no white coat, he don’t give you a sneaky rabbit-punch like a state orderly — he don’t put no ’lectrodes on you, but he still CONTROLS THE JUICE, he still got the POWER, don’tcha, Zack? Doctor Busner, who’s plumpish, in his mid-thirties, and has a baffled expression spread across his sallow features, says, Well. . I really don’t know about that, Claude, I don’t know about that at all. Releasing Busner’s hand Michael says, I’ve been having a pow-wow with your colleague here about the situation with young Christopher, who’s my ward. Listen, his father and I certainly appreciate your taking him in here, but we can’t help wondering if this is the best, ah, environment for him —. He stops: a bed spring has broken deep in the fundament of the world — or at least. . that’s what it sounds like. More disturbingly the reverberating boingoing-oing is followed by a flock of mechanical seagulls and a banshee in the next room wrong-headedly crying, It is not dy-inggg! Busner, who looks a bit green about the gills, pulls out a chair and sits down at the table. He wears a houndstooth jacket and has a brown knitted-wool tie fastened none too efficiently around his grubby collar. To all intents and purposes he seems. . a typical specimen of the breed and Michael is wary: he’s watched psychiatrists this past decade or so as they’ve grown hairier and more wayward — begun bandying about terms such as existentialism and phenomenology, speaking in hushed, priestly tones or hectoring and rabble-rousing ones — in either case. .