Читать книгу The Alexander Cipher - Will Adams - Страница 24

‘Mais attends!’ yelled Augustin Pascal at whatever bastard was pounding at his door. ‘J’arrive! J’arrive!’ He clambered across the naked girl lying with her face down between his pillows. With that long, wavy, tawny hair, it looked like Sophia. He lifted her mane to make sure. Shit! Shit! He’d been excited for a week at the prospect of nailing her, and now he’d gone and wasted it while too drunk to remember.

A terrible thing, growing old.

The pounding on the door began again, resonating with the demolition works inside his skull. He checked his alarm clock. Five thirty! Five fucking thirty! But this was unbelievable! ‘Mais attends!’ he yelled again.

He kept emergency bottles of water and pure oxygen on his bedside table. He alternated long swallows from the one with deep breaths from the other, until he felt able to stand without keeling over. He wrapped a ragged towel around his waist, lit a cigarette, went to his front door. Knox was standing there.

‘The fuck do you want?’ demanded Augustin. ‘You know what fucking time this is?’

‘I’m in trouble,’ said Knox simply. ‘I need help.’