Page 26 of Geist Fleisch
He drank the drinks one after the other, putting the first glass down on the bar so hard, Brigitte flinched. “They were… they were dancing. Just dancing, damn you!”
How to describe the pain he’d heard in their screams? The sight of Max in his arms, body shredded by bullets?
“All right,” murmured Frank once it was clear he’d get no further answer. “We’ll pack up, go back to the Institute, and talk there. There’s no hurry.”
“To hell with you!” Calum slammed the second glass down on the bar and stalked out into the street.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Could he go back? It was all he could think about as the U-Bahn train rattled around him on its way back to Neukölln. Could he make sure Max was all right, or at least, alive in whatever strange way that place allowed?
The entire club had been turned into a bloody, vicious battlefield. He’d watched its patrons relive their deaths, one after another to a man, no longer hiding their horrific scars.
He’d no doubt in his mind that Frank’s ‘experiment’ was to blame. He refused to believe the horror show he’d seen was a normal part of the ghostly club’s nightly program. But if that was so, then it had been he, Callum, who’d brought it upon them. He, theFleischintruder, who’d brought this into the place they’d called their sanctuary. All for the promise of a few answers? Perhaps some money? Now, he had neither. He didn’t even have a way to see Max.
He slid his key into the lock and began trudging up the stairs to his apartment.
“Ah, Callum? Callum!” The shout came from somewhere above him, followed by the thudding of feet on the wooden stairs. Viktor. “I’ve been waiting for you. I need a favour, but don’t worry, is good money in it!”
Callum was in no state to be doing anyone ‘favours,’ but as he reached the door of his room, which might soon be locked to him if he failed to find some cash, he decided to at least hear the man out.
Viktor beamed at him, dressed in a string-vest that showed off the muscles of the broad, hairy chest that dominated his short but athletic frame. “Do you want to make fifty marks tonight?”
“I’m not in the mood for jokes, Viktor.”
“It’s not a joke!” Viktor said, defensively. “A friend of mine saw you the last time he came here. He asked me, ‘who is that handsome fellow?’”
“A friend?” Callum asked. “You mean a John?”
“A what?”
Callum rolled his eyes. “Not a chance.”
“But I already told him you’d do it!”
“You what? Piss off with you!”
“Please, Callum? One hundred marks, then!” Viktor did sound desperate. “I promise you’ll like him. He’s good looking, not much older than us. He does all the work. He won’t even fuck you if you don’t want. You just have to relax and enjoy, then, one hundred marks! Please? Please?”
“If he’s so good looking and nice, why don’t you charge him a hundred marks, Viktor?”
“I… have other plans, and he wants you. The Englishman, he said, just this one time.”
Callum winced, asking himself if a month’s rent in advance would wash away the taste of covering for a double-booked whore. He liked Viktor, but bloody hell! After the night he’dhad and what he’d seen? He remembered the smell of Ernst’s charred body. He looked at his hands, where he’d cradled Max. They were clean. Perhaps it had all gone away once he’d left the place, faded like a forgotten nightmare, leaving Max and his comrades free to dance again. He couldn’t take money for what he’d put them through, and he’d hate himself a lot less for whoring. Hell, there seemed barely a young German in Neukölln who hadn’t traded their flesh for some extra coin.
“Fine,” he said. “One hundred marks, upfront.”
“Danke!Thank you so much, Callum! I’m sure that won’t be a problem!” Viktor threw his strong arms around Callum and wrapped him in a bear hug.
Don’t push it, Callum thought.
***
He’d been told to expect his client at midnight, like a cheap children’s tale turned tawdry panty-dropper. Not wanting to risk his promised hundred marks, Callum had donned his tightest white undershirt, rolling up the already short sleeves to show off the muscles of his arms. He’d dropped for some press-ups and a few other exercises before getting dressed, and now lazed barefoot in the room’s comfortable armchair, legs spread, a cigarette between his fingers, waiting for midnight.
Cinde-fucking-rella, he was not.
His shoulders tensed as he heard the loud bang of the front door, followed by heavy, booted footsteps. Viktor had given his client the front door key, better to avoid the prying eyes of their landlady, and it was not until the stranger reached Callum’s door—indeed, he’d watched ‘that beautiful English boy’ disappear through it previously—that a sharp rapping of knuckles on wood replaced the footsteps.
