A Bright Moon for Fools (9 page)

Slade, his hand shaking from caffeine and exhaustion, grabbed the knife, wrapped it in his jacket, and crossed the road onto the pavement. There wasn’t anyone about. His prey locked the
Mercedes and Slade yelled, “Christmas!” Slade saw him turn, straighten, and then bluster himself back into the car. Slade started to run. The jacket fell, the knife exposed. He sprinted
towards the Mercedes but he had given himself away too early. Christmas pulled out into the road and tore off, leaving Slade running after him until he collapsed on the bonnet of a parked car,
heaving out his breaths, the knife still in his hand. People were staring and pointing. Slade panicked. He ran back to his own car and drove off in the opposite direction, back to Sussex, driving
right up behind people on the motorway until they moved, beeping his horn and shouting at everyone to fuck off.

Slade might have lost the trail there, but he went to see his
eorlderman
, the leader of his Dark Ages re-enactment group. Peter Dunstone, a retired West Sussex police chief in his late
seventies, was a living history enthusiast so lost in his favoured period that he plaited his beard. When Slade, one of his best
thegns
, told him that Harry Christmas had dishonoured his
mother and the memory of his father – the great Saxon sin – he was only too happy to reward his loyal subject by abusing powers meant for the prevention of terrorism. With a few phone
calls to his old friends, he obtained details of Christmas’ passport use and credit card purchases. Slade rang the outdoor pursuits company where he was working as a paintball marshal and
told them he had a family emergency. He booked himself on the next flight to Caracas. Once installed in the hotel room he called his
eorlderman
who told him that a secured credit card
registered to Christmas had been used to book a room at the Gran Melía. Slade went straight there in a taxi.

The elevator doors pinged open. A wealthy family. They pinged open again. A group of businessmen and a child. Something caught Slade’s eye to his right, across the lobby
floor. He thought he saw a cat rush behind a chair. He looked again – the man on the chair – his hair, his suit, the way his head tilted back as he read – the man on the chair was
his father. Slade stood up. He was in trouble for losing the hunting knife. The man closed his newspaper. Slade refocused. The man stood up. It wasn’t his father. Now he was coming closer, he
didn’t even look that much like him.
Ping
. More businessmen. Again and again the elevator doors opened, offering everyone but Harry Christmas. After several minutes he had another
conversation with the duty manager who sent up a porter. The porter returned with an empty suitcase.

“This is very bad,
Señor
– your friend – we are waiting for—”

Slade ran off into the hotel. He ran around the pool. He went into all the restaurants and bars, up the emergency staircase and along the corridors, into the business centre and even the
conference rooms. He ran outside. He ran around the hotel. He ran back in and went downstairs and into the gym, the sauna and then the jacuzzi.

The air was heavy with mist. There was a thin, elderly Venezuelan man, hairy as a bear, in red goggles and blue swimming cap. He was bobbing up and down playfully in the water. He waved at
Slade.

Slade returned to the concierge desk. “I need to see his room.”

C
hristmas put down the receiver and then put on two pairs of trousers. He tightly folded as many of his clothes as possible into a plastic bag. His
new suitcase would have to stay.

He put on his Panama hat and left the room. Instead of taking the guest lift, he took the service elevator to the ground floor and headed in search of the staff entrance, his heart full of
remorse that there were at least two restaurants on the lower ground floor that must remain unassailed. Christmas walked as far as Avenida del Libertador before he realised that he’d left
Emily’s book on the bedside table.

“What the fuck is wrong with you!” he cried out. He cursed and shook his head and studied the sky. He had no choice.

Outside the staff entrance, he ducked behind some bins and stuffed the plastic bag and his hat out of sight. He smoothed down his hair and strolled confidently back into the staff entrance,
playing the part of the idiot tourist. “This way? Sorry, what? Thank you, thank you ...”

He took the service elevator back up to his floor.

He stepped out. It looked clear. At the far end of the corridor he could see trolleys outside the rooms being cleaned and restocked. He still had his room key.

Christmas walked briskly to the door. It was ajar. He entered the room to find two men looking at him. At the foot of the bed, only a step away, was a hotel porter holding Emily’s book.
William Slade was by the window.

A strange moment elapsed as they all looked at each other. Christmas thought he was going to collapse. The shock of seeing Slade had emptied his body of all its strength but for the mad thudding
of his heart.

“Get out,” Slade told the hotel porter but the man didn’t move.

“How—” Christmas started, but Slade cut him off.

“I followed the stink of shit,” he grinned.

“ ¿
Qué está pasando aquí, Señores
?”

“Nice room. How much was it?”

“
Señore
s?”

“Where’s the rest of the money?”

“Now look—”

“Thieving CUNT!” Slade lunged toward Christmas, but the porter caught and rammed him against the wall, shouting for help. Emily’s book was sticking out from the porter’s
hand by Slade’s chin. Christmas snatched it and fled, stuffing it into his jacket pocket.

He ran back towards the service elevator. He hit the button but it didn’t open and he dared not wait. Slade was howling out and he was too scared to check if he was being chased so
Christmas crashed through the next door, not realizing it was the emergency stairs, charging into empty space, his right leg buckling with its mistake. He fell down a flight of ten concrete
steps.

The first impact was on his right shoulder. His scalp gashed open on the edge of a step. He bounced, hitting his back, his hip, his knees, slamming against the wall.

Dazed, blood already streaming down his face, the miracle of fear had his vast bulk up and then down the stairs with only half a glance above him to see if Slade was following. Moments later
Christmas found himself on the ground floor in a corridor full of laundry. He grabbed some hand towels from a pile and held them to his head. Blood was running down his neck, his heart rioted in
his chest. He staggered past the kitchens, waiters and cleaners calling out to him. His lungs were clutching at breath; he couldn’t run anymore; his legs were starting to seize up.

Christmas heard a shout. He looked behind but Slade wasn’t there. A cook was in front of him. Christmas took away the towels. The man saw his injury and, wide-eyed, let him pass. Out of
the staff entrance he made it to the bins, grabbed his plastic bag and his hat and stumbled out into the street. He stopped a cab, checking behind him. No Slade.

Christmas thought he was going to vomit. The taxi driver was asking him where he wanted to go. “Forward,” he crowed, “Just go, keep going, go!” He took the towel down
from his head and looked at the blood. He passed out for a second.

“
Qué pasa? Qué pasa
?” the taxi driver was asking him. Christmas came to.

“Fell – down the stairs,” he managed. Pain was booming across his skull.

“
Qué
?”

“
Abajo las escaleras – me caí.
” They turned a corner and Gran Melía disappeared. He was trembling. He gripped Emily’s book in his jacket. He eked out
tiny breaths against the crushing of his chest, towel against head, great flows of sweat pouring all over his body. Slade was in Venezuela! How could it be? How could it be?

Christmas tried to calm himself, to manage his breathing. The taxi driver was watching him in the rear view mirror. “Take me to a hotel,” he said. “Cheap hotel.”

The Jolly Frankfurt Hotel was an uneasy dollop of bricks between two apartment blocks, off Avenue Lecuna in the Teatros district. Rooms were sixty bolívares per night,
fifteen per hour. Christmas heaved himself up a steep and filthy staircase holding on to his hat and plastic bag, still patting his head with the gory towel. His right arm was surely broken. His
shoulder was agony. He arrived at reception. An ancient man in spectacles and a cowboy hat smoked as he watched a dubbed episode of
Friends
. Wheezing and drenched, Christmas collapsed
against the bell. The old man unfastened the cigarette from his lips and turned to inspect his latest victim.

“
Si
?” He looked over a hundred years old. His face had died, but somewhere at the back two lights had been left on. They talked in Spanish.

“Do you have a room?” whispered Christmas heavily.

“What happened to your head?”

“I fell down some stairs.”

“These stairs?”

“No.”

“Oh. Good.”

“Do you have a room?”

“Yes.” There was a pause.

“Can I see it?”

“Yes.” There was a longer pause.

“Are you going to show me?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s open. Take a look yourself.”

“What number is it?”

“Two.”

“Where is it?”

“Next to one,
cabrón
.”

“Well, where’s one?”

“I don’t know. I don’t work here.”

“Well, who the hell does, man? For the love of God, I am not in the mood!”

“They’ve gone out.”

“Then how do you know two is open?”

“I’ve just been in there.”

“Why?”

“It’s my room.”

“Well, what do I want with your room! Jesus Christ!”

“I don’t know. You asked me if I have a room, I said yes. My room.”

“Listen to me – are there any free rooms in this hotel, yes or no?”

“Number four is free.”

“You
do
work here, don’t you?” said Christmas leaning over the counter. There was a pause.

“Yes.”

“Give me the key.” The man unhooked the key for number four from a nail and handed it over. He whistled at his feet and a hound stood up.

“My dog will show you the room. Number four,” he said to it. The animal went under the counter, pushed past Christmas’ legs and plodded up the stairs. The old man returned to
the television. Christmas followed the dog. At the top it turned left and went to the end of the corridor. It pushed Room Four’s door open with its nose, barked, and then went back
downstairs.

The kindest thing to be said about Room Four was that it was basic. The bed was wedged between two walls, so Christmas would have to climb onto it from the bottom.
Probably enough genetic
information in that mattress to restart the fucking human race
. The minuscule bathroom had a pubic hair on the wall by the toilet, no bath, a basin, and a shower head bent in shame. Christmas
inspected his head in the mirror and washed his face. There was a gash an inch or so long on top of a tender, swollen lump. His hair was matted with blood.
At least my face is all right
, he
thought, examining his neck. He wriggled his moustache.

He took off his jacket and his shirt. It was agony. The bruising had come up quickly, huge patches covering his forearms, his back, the right side of his upper body, arm and shoulder. He took
off both pairs of trousers he was wearing. His buttocks and thighs were also badly bruised. His right hip ached. He emptied his belongings from the plastic bag onto the mattress with his left hand.
He turned on the ceiling fan. It ground slowly into life and then whirred so fast it threatened to fly off its attachment. He lay down painfully.

Slade was in Venezuela. Christmas tried to make sense of it. How had he found him? First Streatham and now this? He must have discovered which flights he’d taken – but the hotel?
Perhaps he had people working for him, people who hacked into computers, that kind of thing – people could do that these days, couldn’t they, if they knew how?
Jesus fucking Christ,
this is not worth twenty-six thousand pounds
. Had to be the computers. Slade was following him through the computers somehow. He had to use just cash from now on – but what cash? He
hardly had any left ...

Christmas battled despair. “No!” he shouted at himself, “Up on two legs, man!” After all, this wasn’t the first kicking he’d received. Far from it. He needed
to get a grip! Sort himself out! He needed to think, to formulate a plan. He needed stitches in his head, and by the devil and all his works he needed a drink.

After lying there for a long while, Christmas got dressed again, wincing at every move. The headache was astonishing in its power. He still felt dizzy on the stairs. He paid sixty
bolívares for the room and prised the location of the nearest medical centre out of the old man. He then headed out onto the street, walking slowly towards La Clínica Popular
El
Paraíso
, checking around himself all the time, his heart full of fear.

He crossed the Autopista Francisco Fajardo and entered the hospital, part of Chávez’s
Misión Barrio Adentro
offering free care. He queued for three hours in a room
that smelt of lemons, seated between old couples, mothers and boys with bandaged knees. He told the doctor he had fallen down the stairs. The doctor evidently did not believe him. He gave Christmas
twelve stitches in his head and implied that the patient had escaped broken bones only by virtue of natural padding. Christmas was given pills for pain and antiseptic cream for the wound, with
instructions to keep it clean and to return in a few days.

Patched up, Christmas put on his Panama and went back into the streets to find a
licorería
. Standing away from the sunshine with a Solera in his hand, scanning the passersby, he
took stock of his circumstances.
Your circumstances are that you need to stop checking around every five seconds like a rabbit
! Christmas snapped at himself.
Slade got to the hotel,
that’s it. He’s not here, he doesn’t know where you are
.