herself up toward him, grips him more tightly than her supposedly weak frame should manage. He has to pry her from him and, as he shuts the bedroom door, he hears the TV flicker to life.
He stops by the phone on his way out and tries Katja’s number one more time but, as before, there is no answer. So he steps out into the rain, stands before his car. The side of it is now patched up with white paint to cover the various vandalism attempts courtesy of the neighbourhood kids.
Now that they know what he does during the day.
It is probably only a matter of time before he will be having to visit each of them, dragging them to and from courthouses and detention centres. He doesn’t know whether it will bring him any satisfaction or not.
He starts the engine and drives across town to the aging brownstone that houses Katja’s squat. He has been there before, knows which entrance she uses to get in. He lifts a piece of scrap metal lying on the overgrown lawn that runs up the side of the building and wedges it against some old rotten crates that he knows conceal a gap in the wall, just in case she tries to escape there. Then he walks around the back and squeezes himself through the pane of a long-vanished window that lies at ground level, drops into the room below.
The sounds of fucking hit him immediately and he turns to see a man and two women sprawled across a grubby mattress in the middle of the room. The man is sandwiched between the two women and Anatoli cannot make out whose limbs belong to whom. It is as if some mythical beast writhes before him until one of the women turns, crawls onto her knees toward him. She looks up at Anatoli, at his officious posture and the line of sweat rising on his brow and blade-like cheekbones.
She smiles invitingly, rolls her eyes as she is entered from behind by the other woman, wearing some sort of device strapped around her waist.
“Excuse me,” Anatoli says, and leaves the room.
It is considerably cooler in the corridor. He wipes his brow with his sleeve and turns, notices a teenager with tattoos all down one side of his face at the same time that the teenager notices Anatoli, and the boy panics, drops the burger he is holding.
“Shit!”
And Anatoli tries to grab him, misses. “Wait!”
But some basic survival instinct has been triggered and the boy is gone, vanishing into the darkness farther down the hall, scurrying off into the innards of the building like a rat.
Anatoli walks to the third door on his left, leans into it.
Someone else is coming along the corridor now and their footsteps are slow, cautious. They too must sense his officialdom and that same survival instinct kicks in. Anatoli holds up a hand to stop them from running, let them know that whatever it is they’ve done, that’s not why he’s here.
He then enters the room and closes the door behind him.
“Katja?”
There is a bed, her guitars, an amp, some books. Little else.
She’s not there.
It’s possible she is in one of the other squatters’ rooms but for people who spend their lives on hijacked property, Anatoli has found they are inordinately protective of their own little hiding holes. So she’s not there and he doesn’t really care that much.
It just doesn’t seem that important.
But he’ll give her ten minutes.
He crouches next to a stack amp, the mesh of which has been ripped along one seam and is splattered with spray paint, feels the rumble of loud music filtering through the walls from one of the upper floors, and he’s almost started drifting off to sleep when he hears movement nearby.
It’s the rattle of the metal sheet he has placed up against Katja’s entrance and there she is, her leg coming through now. He steps back into the deep frame of the room’s doorway and it’s enough to douse him in shadows and let him watch her for a few moments.
When she picks up her guitar he steps forward.
“Katja.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
She doesn’t say a word when he piles her
He stops by the phone on his way out and tries Katja’s number one more time but, as before, there is no answer. So he steps out into the rain, stands before his car. The side of it is now patched up with white paint to cover the various vandalism attempts courtesy of the neighbourhood kids.
Now that they know what he does during the day.
It is probably only a matter of time before he will be having to visit each of them, dragging them to and from courthouses and detention centres. He doesn’t know whether it will bring him any satisfaction or not.
He starts the engine and drives across town to the aging brownstone that houses Katja’s squat. He has been there before, knows which entrance she uses to get in. He lifts a piece of scrap metal lying on the overgrown lawn that runs up the side of the building and wedges it against some old rotten crates that he knows conceal a gap in the wall, just in case she tries to escape there. Then he walks around the back and squeezes himself through the pane of a long-vanished window that lies at ground level, drops into the room below.
The sounds of fucking hit him immediately and he turns to see a man and two women sprawled across a grubby mattress in the middle of the room. The man is sandwiched between the two women and Anatoli cannot make out whose limbs belong to whom. It is as if some mythical beast writhes before him until one of the women turns, crawls onto her knees toward him. She looks up at Anatoli, at his officious posture and the line of sweat rising on his brow and blade-like cheekbones.
She smiles invitingly, rolls her eyes as she is entered from behind by the other woman, wearing some sort of device strapped around her waist.
“Excuse me,” Anatoli says, and leaves the room.
It is considerably cooler in the corridor. He wipes his brow with his sleeve and turns, notices a teenager with tattoos all down one side of his face at the same time that the teenager notices Anatoli, and the boy panics, drops the burger he is holding.
“Shit!”
And Anatoli tries to grab him, misses. “Wait!”
But some basic survival instinct has been triggered and the boy is gone, vanishing into the darkness farther down the hall, scurrying off into the innards of the building like a rat.
Anatoli walks to the third door on his left, leans into it.
Someone else is coming along the corridor now and their footsteps are slow, cautious. They too must sense his officialdom and that same survival instinct kicks in. Anatoli holds up a hand to stop them from running, let them know that whatever it is they’ve done, that’s not why he’s here.
He then enters the room and closes the door behind him.
“Katja?”
There is a bed, her guitars, an amp, some books. Little else.
She’s not there.
It’s possible she is in one of the other squatters’ rooms but for people who spend their lives on hijacked property, Anatoli has found they are inordinately protective of their own little hiding holes. So she’s not there and he doesn’t really care that much.
It just doesn’t seem that important.
But he’ll give her ten minutes.
He crouches next to a stack amp, the mesh of which has been ripped along one seam and is splattered with spray paint, feels the rumble of loud music filtering through the walls from one of the upper floors, and he’s almost started drifting off to sleep when he hears movement nearby.
It’s the rattle of the metal sheet he has placed up against Katja’s entrance and there she is, her leg coming through now. He steps back into the deep frame of the room’s doorway and it’s enough to douse him in shadows and let him watch her for a few moments.
When she picks up her guitar he steps forward.
“Katja.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
She doesn’t say a word when he piles her
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