Endgame Read Online Free Page B

might do something he’d regret. It was bad enough that he had to book time off work to come out here, making some lame excuse about a dying mother-in-law. Then, once they’d decided to drive up together, Sami Lee insisted on going by limo. With her chain-smoking and constant carping, it had been pure torture. Worst of all, Pete had been the one to put the car on his credit card. How the hell did she expect him to pay for it? She probably hadn’t thought about that. Max spoiled her, so it wouldn’t occur to her that someone had to pay the fucking piper. Bitch!
    As he stood there fuming, a red Saab zoomed over the crest of the hill and headed straight for them. Pete had just enough time to leap to the shoulder as the car went roaring by. He caught a glimpse of an over-dressed business-type with dark skin sitting behind the wheel. The man barely glanced at Pete as he raced past.
    â€œFucking asshole!” Pete screamed, shaking his fist as the car disappeared in the distance.
    He heard laughter coming from the backseat.
    â€œWhat are you laughing at?” Pete demanded of the pair huddled together and smirking at him through the window.
    â€œYou, you fucking piece of shit,” Max said. “Get back in the car. We’re gonna miss the boat.”
    Pete got back in and glared at the couple in the rear-view mirror. They’d already stopped paying attention to him. He checked his image: the pale face, as though he’d grown up under a rock; the now-permanent dark circles under his eyes; and the dry, stringy hair. What a fucking mess. The factory was killing him. Clearly, he spent too much time indoors.
    Sami Lee’s giggles reached him from the back seat. He looked back to see her smirking.
    â€œGet going, man,” Max commanded.
    Pete ran a hand through his hair and sighed. Gotta keep my cool , he reminded himself. These two are trouble enough without getting on their bad side . He turned the key and eased the car back onto the road.
    â€œRemind me again why we’re doing this?” he said over his shoulder.
    He heard a grunt.
    â€œMoney. What the fuck do you think?” Max said.
    â€œYou sure you and Spike will be able to get along after all this time?” Pete asked, wondering if that was possible. They’d been inseparable in the early days, like some sort of freakish science-fiction twins. Since the breakup, as far as anyone knew, they hadn’t spoken a word to one another.
    â€œHarvey says he’s into it,” Max replied with a bored shrug. “If that cunt can do it, so can I.”
    A train sped past them on the left. They held pace with it for a while before it veered off into the hills. They might have outraced it, but Pete had to stop the car every time he saw an Arby’s. He didn’t know why; the Voice just told him to stop. Pee time , he’d say, to groans from the back seat. Or, Got something in my eye. Won’t be a minute . How else to explain you’re under the control of a voice in your head? Then he’d go in, take a breath, and wash his hands in excessively hot water before returning. He didn’t know why he had to do it, but if he didn’t follow the Voice’s commands the tension became unbearable. By now, he knew it was easier to submit.
    An hour later they arrived at a small fishing village — mostly locals and a few tourists in town for the season. The car windows rolled down as the three occupants looked around. Sami Lee hated small towns. Small towns, she knew, tended to breed small minds. Anyone different was looked on as an outcast. They were either feared or scorned and sometimes both. Her mother had lived through Second World War Japan — she remembered Hiroshima — so Sami Lee knew humans could adapt. If she had to, she could survive worse. In some ways, punk rock had been kind of an atomic blast.
    Pete stopped the car to ask for directions to the boat landing. A woman with a small boy