The Chosen Child by Graham Masterton

Author:Graham Masterton [Masterton, Graham]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Head of Zeus Ltd.

12

Marek and Olga and three of their friends came bursting out of the Green Cat Billiard Club on Piekna Street, laughing and slapping at each other. They had been playing billiards for most of the afternoon, and Marek had won eleven zlotys. He was supposed to have gone for a job interview at a hi-fi store on Grzybowska, but in the end he hadn’t bothered. The pay was crap, and the pasty-faced assistant manager had treated him as if he was something he had stepped in. Not only that, the store had playing old Wojciech Mlynarski records, which had been enough to make Marek feel like tying a plastic bag over his head and ending it all.

‘You coming to Zbylut’s tonight?’ asked one of Marek’s friends. ‘His parents have gone to Cracow.’

‘Pa-a-arty!’ screamed Olga, and danced a little wiggling dance right there on the sidewalk.

‘I don’t know,’ said Marek. ‘I’m supposed to be meeting up with Clayton Marsh.’

‘Oh, excuse me,’ his friend retorted. ‘Kurt’s on a case with the great American detective. You can see it now, can’t you? Marsh and Maslowski, crime-busters!’

‘They’ve caught the Executioner, anyway,’ put in Olga.

‘Clayton says they’ve made a mistake.’

‘Oh come on, Kurt. How does he know?’

‘He just does, that’s all. He says the gliniarze are rushing this through because they’re embarrassed.’

‘So what’s it got to do with you?’

Marek took out a cigarette. ‘I said I’d help, man, that’s all. Think how many people the Executioner’s murdered. I mean, he’s the mass-murderer of the century, practically. If we can catch him – the real Executioner – think of the fame, man. TV interviews, pictures in the paper. There’s a reward, too.’

‘You’re dreaming,’ laughed another of his friends.

‘So? What’s wrong with dreaming?’

‘Nothing – when you’re asleep.’

They scuffled and pushed each other as they walked along Piekna. It was just after four o’clock in the afternoon now and the sky was heavy and grey. There was no wind, and the city was warm and humid and hazy with pollution. They started singing, badly off key.

‘You’ll still come to Zbylut’s?’ asked Olga, grasping Marek’s arm.

‘Maybe later. It depends what Clayton wants to do.’

‘Clayton, Clayton, Clayton! Why don’t you do what you want to do?’

They crossed the street, dodging in between the cars and the buses. And it was then that Marek glanced back, just to make sure that all of his friends were following him, and saw something on the opposite side of Koszykowa that brought him to a halt, even before he had reached the sidewalk. He stood in the road frowning, trying to see between the passing buses and trucks, and the crowds of pedestrians on the other side of the road. A man in grey overalls was lowering the last triangular section of a four-pointed sewer lid. Passers-by were walking around him without taking any notice; and in a moment he had joined the crowds himself, and disappeared. But Marek stood and stared and felt a cold crawling sensation down his spine. The man might

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