Hazard
Okay, so what the hell was he going to do now?
No job, no money, he’d had a row with his sister, his flat was uninhabitable and, maybe worst of all, he’d been chucked out of the Game!
The Goat had let him crash on his sofa for a couple of days, but all the coming and going and all the fucking dopehead dweebs who seemed to hang around in the flat all the time were driving him mad. Didn’t the bastards have jobs to go to?
He needed time to think, to go through his options and plan his next moves. Not that he had many lined up, exactly …
As usual, Manga was the one who stepped up. His old woman wasn’t exactly happy, but evidently their religion meant they had to be hospitable and generous to the poor, so she didn’t have much choice. But that didn’t mean that Betul missed any opportunity to scowl at him, no, she didn’t exactly hold back there. But HP ignored her from his comfortable lying position on their best Ikea sofa.
HP/Islam 1, miserable witch 0.
Something to be pleased about, anyway. That and the fact that he now had plenty of time to think. Betul didn’t like computers, which was pretty absurd when you considered what her husband did for a living. But seeing as she was head of the Al-Hassan family, there was no Playstation, no PC, nor any film channels to disturb his concentration, leaving HP with time to think at last.
A job could wait, he still had a few days left on unemployment benefit and something was bound to turn up. The flat would be fixed in a week or so. New paint, new floor and a new front door, all paid for by the insurance. Bloody lucky that Becca had kept up with the most important bills when he was short of cash.
So how could he make it up to her?
Sadly there was no good answer to that question.
Becca was furious with him, and for good reason. He’d crossed the line the other day, seriously marched over it. But he hadn’t actually had any choice. She mustn’t get caught up in this, at least not any more than she already was.
But it already looked like it was too late. They must have been watching him somehow. And saw her visiting him and thought he was spilling the beans again. Somewhere a mobile phone had flashed and a player, maybe even some fucking rookie, had been given the task of teaching the grass a lesson, the same way he had done with the door over in Birkastan.
A little home delivery, à la Game Master.
According to the cops, his wasn’t the first call to the emergency services. Someone had rung a few minutes earlier, probably around the time that they started the fire, so they presumably didn’t want to kill him. Not this time, anyway.
Which led him back to his original question. What was he going to do now? Did they really expect him just to forget everything, keep his mouth shut and never think about the Game again? Could he do that even if he wanted to?
Apart from the business with the stone and his sister, he had been run over, beaten up, given the third degree, had the shit scared out of him and then his flat set fire to.
So in other words, he had plenty of reasons to be pissed off.
But the sickest thing in this whole mess was that in spite of everything they’d done to him, he was still dreaming about getting back in, being forgiven and allowed to carry on playing.
Step back out onto the track to the applause of the spectators.
He could see it was wrong, that it was completely insane, in fact, but he still couldn’t shake the thought.
What if he could get in touch with someone, the Game Master himself perhaps? Say he was sorry and maybe get another chance? The question was just how to go about it? There was no contact list, sadly, and he had a fair idea that he wouldn’t have any luck with the Yellow Pages or Google.
Okay, he still had the mobile phone, but that had been dead since the fire. The battery must be exhausted by now. But all those hours on the sofa had at least given him one idea. Every modern mobile was a sort of little computer. They had at least two different types of memory where it ought to be possible to dig out something useful, if you only knew what you were doing.
Luckily he had the right man for the job. Straight out of One Thousand and One Nights: his own reluctant host, the world’s most browbeaten husband, the artist formerly known as … Manga!
‘I know you’re keen to have a look at this, Mangalito,’ he said an hour or so later, tossing the mobile on the shop counter. ‘It’s all yours. All I need to know is who’s been sending me messages and how I can turn the tables and contact them.’
Manga looked at him lazily over a copy of that day’s Metro without moving a finger, but he couldn’t fool HP. HP could see the corner of one of his friend’s eyes literally start to twitch. And, just like when they were playing poker, all you had to do was sit it out.
Easy peasy!
‘On one condition,’ Manga said after a few seconds of trying to look uninterested.
‘Whatever …!’
As long as it doesn’t break rule number one, HP thought to himself.
Manga grinned.
‘That from now on you call me Farook!’
‘Deal!’ HP said in relief, before he realized what he’d agreed to.
Oh well, if it would make the towel-head happy …
It had been a nice meal. Very good food, and a decent atmosphere. Thai, but without being kitsch the way Asian restaurants often were. There had been no trace of ‘Love Me Tender’ in Thai, or concertina lanterns with selected words of Buddhist wisdom. No, it had all been really good, in fact.
They’d done just the right amount of talking, had kept quiet while they were eating, and he hadn’t even raised an eyebrow when she declined the wine, just as he hadn’t questioned her explanation of a minor traffic accident to cover her injuries. Afterwards they’d exchanged a quick kiss, then they had each gone back home on their own.
She realized that it was the first time that had happened.
So what did that mean? Were they on their way to a proper relationship?
Absolutely not, she decided, firmly interrupting that line of thinking.
They had simply had a nice meal, talked about all manner of things, nothing of any great significance. He had talked about his parents’ farm in Södermanland, and how he had moved to the city to study instead of taking over the farm, and how he had been trying to stay out of the way as best he could.
‘Guilty conscience,’ he had said with a wry smile. Not being able to live up to expectations.
She understood perfectly what he meant. She had listened with interest and occasionally made a comment, though without volunteering the same level of confidence herself. But he had worked that out fairly quickly and hadn’t pushed her in that direction at all.
He was actually a nice guy. Better
