The Bone Clocks

I wince. From the Bank of Floorboards I withdraw my assets and redeposit the wedge of banknotes in my passport bag. This I secure inside my ski jacket, contemplating that, while the wealthy are no more likely to be born stupid than the poor, a wealthy upbringing compounds stupidity while a hardscrabble childhood dilutes it, if only for Darwinian reasons. This is why the elite needa prophylactic barrier of shitty state schools, to prevent clever kids from working-class post codes ousting them from the Enclave of Privilege. Angry voices, British and African, are jostling down below. From the street outside I hear a beep. I look through my window and see a gray Hyundai with a skullcap of snow, crawling thisaway with ill intent. It stops, of course, at the mouth of Chвteau Chetwynd-Pitt, blocking the drive. Out step two burly guys in sheepskin jackets. Then Candy, Shandy, or Mandy appears, beckoning them in …

THE FRACAS IN the lounge falls silent. “ You, whoever you are,” shouts Rufus Chetwynd-Pitt, “get off my property nowor I call the police!”

Camp-Psycho-German with a nasal voice: “You ate in a fancy restaurant, boys. Now it is the time to pay the bill.”

Chetwynd-Pitt: “They never saidthey were hookers!”

Camp-Psycho-German: “ Youdid not say you are crafted of penis yogurt, yet you are. You are Rufus, I believe.”

“None of your fuckingbusiness whatmy—”

“Disrespectful language is unbusinesslike, Rufus.”

“Get—out—now!”

“Unfortunately, you owe three thousand dollars.”

Chetwynd-Pitt: “Really? Let’s see what the police—”

That must be the TV expiring in a tinkly boom. The bookcase slams on the stone wall? Smash, clang, wallop: glassware, crockery, pictures, mirrors; surely Henry Kissinger won’t escape unscathed. And there’s Chetwynd-Pitt shrieking, “My hand, my f’ck’n’ hand!”

An inaudible answer to an inaudible question.

Camp-Psycho-German: “I CANNOT HEAR YOU, RUFUS!”

“We’ll pay,” whinnies Chetwynd-Pitt, “we’ll pay …”

“Certainly. However, you obliged Shandy to call us, so the price is higher. This is a ‘call-out fee’ in English, I think. In business, we must cover costs. You. Yes, you. What is your name?”

“O-O-Olly,” says Olly Quinn.

“My second wife owned a Chihuahua named Olly. It bit me. I threw it down a …  Scheiss, what is it, for an elevator to go up, to go down? The big hole. Olly—I am asking you the English word.”

“A … an elevator shaft?”

“Precisely. I threw Olly into the elevator shaft. So, Olly, you will not bite me. Correct? So. You will now gather your monies.”

Quinn says, “My—my—my what?”

“Monies. Funds. Assets. Yours, Rufus’s, your friend’s. If there is enough to pay our call-out fee, we leave you to your Happy New Year. If not, we do some lateral thinking about how you pay your debts.”

One of the women speaks, and more mumbling. A few seconds later Camp-Psycho-German calls up the stairway. “Beatle Number Four! Join us. You will not be hurt, if you do no heroic actions.”

Soundlessly, I open the window—it’s cold!—and swing my legs over the window ledge. A Hitchcock Vertigomoment: Alpine roofs you’re planning to slide down look suddenly much steeper than Alpine roofs admired from below. Although the angle of Chetwynd-Pitt’s chalet becomes shallower over the kitchen, there’s a real risk that in fifteen seconds I’ll be the screaming owner of two broken legs.

“Lamb?” It’s Fitzsimmons, up on the stairway. “That money you won off Rufus … He needs it. They have knives, Hugo. Hugo?”

I lower myself onto the tiles, gripping the windowsill.

Five, four, three, two, one …

LE CROC IS locked, dark, and there’s no sign of Holly Sykes. Perhaps the bar’s closed tonight, so Holly won’t be in to clean it until tomorrow morning. Why didn’t I ask for her number? I hobble to the town square but even the hub of La Fontaine Sainte-Agnиs is in an end-of-the-world mood: few tourists, fewer vehicles, the gorilla- cr к pie’s nowhere to be seen, most shops have Ferm йsigns up. How come? Last year January 1 had quite a buzz. The sky presses lower, the gray of sodden mattresses. I go into La Pвtisserie Palanche de la Cretta, order a coffee and a carac, and slump in the corner by the window, ignoring my throbbing ankle. Detective Sheila Young won’t be thinking about me today, at least. What now? What next? Activate Marcus Anyder? I have his passport in a safety-deposit box at Euston station. A bus to Geneva, a train to Amsterdam or Paris; across on the hovercraft; flight to Panama; the Caribbean … Job on a yacht.

Really? Do I pack in my old life, just like that?

Never see my family again? It’s so abrupt.

Somehow this isn’t what the script says.