The information by Martin Amis

Author:Martin Amis [Amis, Martin]
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Unread
ISBN: 9780517585160
Publisher: Harmony Books
Published: 1995-04-24T22:00:00+00:00

Crash waved a great hand: it was not given to all, this grasp of the higher motoring mysteries. It was definitely not given to the police ... His devout but wounded gaze turned to the fagade of the old Adonis. The All Saints Road, with its new poster galleries and tapas bars, had changed dramatically even in Crash's adult lifetime. But not so long ago (Crash nodded to himself) the old Adonis had loomed over perhaps the busiest and certainly the noisiest drug corner in West London: "a symbolic location," to quote Police Review. It was a drive-by, All Saints and Lancaster: the cars came and slowed, all night, and the shaved black heads bobbed up to the unwinding windows. The Adonis, the old super-pub with its sticky chandeliers and sodden carpet, its contrapuntal rock videos and the thick bank of dole-quaffing fruit machines, was the natural fulcrum of the play. And there you found the reverse apartheid of the drug economy, with the whites, in their frothing melee of malt beer, keeping the given distance from the sober but hot-faced brothers, who tended their Lucozades and Ribenas on the streetside bar. The Adonis. Its colonial symmetry and gaiety—where were they now? Effaced, abashed, behind planks and mesh wire. But if you (Crash grunted as he eased his neck round further), but if you... that bit there. A low door, to the side and down a step or two, and the guy within, watching and glinting. If you listened you could faintly hear the modest monotony of the music and—yeah—the sound of glasses clashing or cracking. So: the old Adonis refuse to die. It had found, in the eaves and runnels, a diminished and secondary existence: but continuation, all the same. Demi, who was watching Crash, saw a look of pleased indulgence show in his eyes. She didn't know, either, about the deep association between Adonis and rebirth, of his shared identity with Orpheus, and with Christ, who represented a power that could bring the dead souls back, as Orpheus had failed to do.

"Bastards," said Demi.

Crash smiled. She meant the police. "You don't want to go in there," he said.

"The Adonis?"

"That a bad pub."

He went on smiling; there was even a quiet complicit gurgle somewhere in the back of his throat. The light was failing but here were the bleach and ivory of his teeth. She laughed musically and said,

"I know all about the Adonis."

"You never!"

So. Then it comes out. Crash was mainly relieved, but he also felt promoted, and flattered, of course, in many tender points of head and heart. Up until now, with Demi, he could think of no investigative move to make, other than sexual harassment. Where you would find out something, whatever the downside: where you would get information. And he just couldn't do that. He just couldn't do that. Now, though, before he put the Metro into gear, he leaned over and into the costly universe of her blondness and Englishness and kissed the side of her pale mouth.

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