Death is a Welcome Guest: Plague Times Trilogy 2 Read Online Free

weight of laughter surging towards him. It rose from deep in the audience’s bellies, firing out of wide-open mouths, each one with its share of teeth, and though he could not see them, Magnus could imagine the faces of the crowd, heads thrown back, tongues wet and shining, eyes squeezed into slits. The crowd had loved Johnny Dongo and he had steered them upward, ever upward, sending them rocket-fuelled out into the night. But now that Johnny was off stage, it was as if all his energy had turned to venom.
    Kim coughed. ‘Christ,’ she said to Johnny. ‘I think I’m getting your cold. I sound like fag-ash Lil.’
    Johnny hoicked up a gob of phlegm and spat into his handkerchief. ‘I don’t have a fucking cold.’
    Kim produced a small Ziploc bag from her purse and chopped out neat lines of coke, white stripes bright against the black coffee table, like an inverse barcode. Johnny took a note from his pocket, rolled it tight and handed it to her. ‘Ladies first.’ Kim rubbed his thigh as if she were testing it for quality and hoovered up three lines. She passed the note back to Johnny who followed suit.
    ‘Whoa!’ There was a glimpse of the man he had been on stage. ‘That’ll do the trick.’ Johnny grinned and then sneezed. ‘Fuck.’ He sniffed and shook his head. ‘I think I lost it.’
    Johnny’s pisshole-in-the-snow pupils had all but disappeared and Magnus thought the coke had met its mark despite the sneeze, but the comedian fished the note from his pocket again and snorted another three lines.
    ‘Sorry about that, lads.’ He grinned at the Dongolites. ‘Reduced rations. Share nicely now.’
    Johnny’s acolytes took their turn and then there were two lonely lines, thin and shuffled-looking, waiting for Magnus. There was plenty of the white stuff left in Kim’s Ziploc and Magnus wondered if Johnny had orchestrated a shortage for his own amusement, but Dongo looked washed out despite his double dose of marching powder. The thought flitted across Magnus’s mind that he should pass up his share in case Kruze’s fears came true and he had to stand in for Johnny ( let’s do the show right here! ) but the rum had tipped him beyond such precautions. He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a fiver. The blue note looked out of place in the upscale hotel room, but Magnus rolled it tight and snorted the good stuff up into his sinuses, tasting the chemical cut of it in the back of his throat. His nerves zingalinged in anticipation of the hit and, for the first time that evening, he smiled.
     
    Time died in the hotel room and everything shrank and expanded into the moment that was now. Kim put on some music and got each of them up to dance, one at a time; all except for Johnny. The girl was broad-beamed and heavy on her feet, but she had a sense of rhythm and moved her hips in time to the music. Magnus wondered again if she was the comedian’s beard and if Johnny would mind if he borrowed her for a while, just long enough for him to lie her down on the bed in the next room and fuck the sound of train wheels from his head. He took Kim by the arm and drew her close, as if they were in some old movie and he was Frank Sinatra. Kim leaned in to him and put an arm around his back. She was shorter than Magnus and he found himself staring at her beehive. It looked hard and brittle and he felt a sudden urge to snap it from her head.
    ‘I like your hair,’ he said and ran an experimental hand across her rear.
    Kim’s face was shiny beneath its coating of make-up. She let Magnus’s hand rove the globe of her bottom and then shoved him in the chest, dealing a blow that sent him reeling against the bathroom door.
    ‘Rude boy,’ she whispered, in a voice that might have been a come-on.
    ‘Help yourself,’ Johnny said. He was sitting between the Dongolites now, on the couch Magnus had vacated, all three of them laughing at something on Johnny’s phone. Magnus saw that they were leaning against the stage suit