Bäbel turned away, a petulant swish of hair. <<If it made them cry, then why they did complain?>> she said. <<People are so crazy.>>
Maybe it had something to do with the Teutonic mentality, Croon thought. The Germans were paranoid about telephone security. Even wrong numbers were frowned upon.
<<Fucking strange>> he said.
Gustav stared down the barrel of his father's Mr Nine Millimetre in his dingy apartment in post-industrial Kiel. Earlier in the day, in full post-industrial mode, his 17-year-old girlfriend had dumped him for an older man. He was so committed to her, he'd spent nearly a year with her and she was the only girl who'd ever given a care about him. To complicate things, the end of school loomed like a noose in front of him and he didn't have a clue what to do with his life. His pot habit had gone through the euphoric stage and now only depressed him. Why bother. Fikt es.
He strained his trigger finger, suppressed a rudimentary surge of some emotion he couldn't even name. Headfucked gabba music was barking from the soundsystem. The phone rang.
<<Fuck off!>> he said. He strained his trigger finger a little tighter.
The phone was connected to an answering machine with a speaker to play messages as they came in. A song sounded softly in the speaker, sweetly, like a wordless lullaby. It was only as third as loud as the gabba but for some reason it took over the room and whooshed through his ears and reminded him of a place so far away, so long ago, it must have been a dream world.
Then, for the first time in living memory, tears rose in his eyes and despite his best efforts to suppress them great welling sobs spilled out and he dropped the gun and rolled into the corner of the room.
CASSIUS CROON and other characters
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