Read The Fly Guy for Free Online Page B

and into the light of the hallway. When she sees Archie lying there like roadkill, twitching and bleeding, she falls silent and pulls the sheet around her to cover her breasts.
    Gregor pulls Archie to his feet and juggles him down the hallway. Archie spills into the main room, illuminated only by the television.
    Archie moans hoarsely, “Fuck, fuck.”
    Gregor shouts at the blonde, “Get in here.”
    She jumps, then starts to move. He points at the lump hammer at her feet. “Bring it,” he commands.
    She picks up the hammer as she comes into the room. A shouting and knocking on the wall starts from next door. Gregor points next to Archie.
    “Sit down.”
    She sits and Archie whimpers and reaches out to her. She recoils, disgusted by his broken face. Gregor stands over them. The television screen behind Gregor fills the wall. It’s on pause. A bikini-clad woman in heels is walking through a warehouse toward a group of white men. Archie coughs more blood onto the floor and sees his knee for the first time. A bone sticks out from beneath it, poking through his skin. He screams.
    From next door the sound of the television being turned up full comes through the walls, the sound of cars and sirens and gunshots swimming around the room. Gregor squats down in front of Lucy. His eyes are deep brown, and his short hair is greying at the temples. His hands are tanned and smooth as he takes the hammer from her, placing it out of reach. He reaches inside his black leather jacket, and with a single movement and a sound like a whip pulls out a flick knife. Its blade reflects and shines. It is smooth at the top and serrated at the base. He holds it in front of the blonde before turning to Archie.
    Archie tries to struggle away, but Gregor grabs his chin and holds his face still. Archie’s face is cracked in the middle like a ripped photograph and his cheekbones are swelling up beneath his eyes. One of his eyes has turned red. It looks like the blue pupil is floating on a ball of blood. Gregor presses the edge of the blade to Archie’s face.
    “Where is it?”
    Archie splutters and grabs Gregor’s forearm to try and break his grip. Gregor grips his face tighter and pushes him back on the floor, turning his head and holding his face to the floor with his knee. The girl leans forward, her eyes widening as Gregor pulls Archie’s ear tight and with one cut, slices through the cartilage. Archie’s mouth opens wide and a tremulous shriek rushes out, a higher pitch than before, the rasp in his throat like a drill behind the screams.
    The volume from next door’s television ramps up and noise swills around the room. Gregor turns to the girl, the piece of ear in his hand. Drops of blood are spattered on her face.
    “What’s your name?” he says.
    “What?” she shouts back.
    “What is your name?” he shouts.
    “Lucy,” she yells. She sees him say it to himself, as if trying it out.
    He closes the flick knife and puts it back in his pocket. As Archie’s scream subsides, Gregor takes his knee from his face and pulls him up to a sitting position. He holds half of Archie’s right ear in front of his face.
    “Where is it?”
    Archie clutches the side of his head, coating his hand in a bloody glove.
    “The coke is all here, right by the table.”
    “Not the fucking coke, Archie, you know what I’m talking about.”
    “I don’t know. I don’t know what you want.”
    Gregor yanks his head back as though preparing him for slaughter. Archie’s face is sticky with blood and saliva and mucus, and he is spitting as he breathes, heaving foul coppery breath.
    “Where is it?”
    “What? What? Tell me what the fuck … I don’t know what the fuck—”
    “Spiral, Archie. Where is it?”
    “I don’t know, Gregor, I don’t …”
    Lucy shouts and points. “The sink. Under the sink. The bag.”
    She speaks with an accent, a sharpness which Gregor recognises as deep Eastern Europe, maybe Russia. He knows why she is there, sleeping