Anansi Boys

Well, she thought, thatmakes life easier. It’s better with a plan. She walked back to her flat with a spring in her step, carrying her box of chocolates.

“What did you do?” asked Fat Charlie. “She just seemed to turn off.”

Spider shrugged. “I didn’t want to upset her,” he said.

“Why didn’t you tell her the truth?”

“It didn’t seem appropriate.”

“Like you’d know what was appropriate?”

Spider touched the front door and it opened.

“I have keys, you know,” said Fat Charlie. “It’s my front door.”

They walked into the hallway, walked up the stairs.

“Where have you been?” asked Spider.

“Nowhere. Out,” said Fat Charlie, as if he were a teenager.

“I was attacked by birds in the restaurant this morning. Do you know anything about that? You do, don’t you.”

“Not really. Maybe. It’s just time for you to leave, that’s all.”

“Don’t start anything,” said Spider.

“Me? Me start anything? I think I’ve been a model of restraint. You came into my life. You got my boss upset, and got the police onto me. You, you’ve been kissing my girlfriend. You screwed up my life.”

“Hey,” said Spider. “You ask me, you’ve done a great job of screwing up your life on your own.”

Fat Charlie clenched his fist, swung back, and hit Spider in the jaw, like they do on the movies. Spider staggered back, more surprised than hurt. He put his hand to his lip, then looked down at the blood on his hand. “You hit me,” he said.

“I can do it again,” said Fat Charlie, who wasn’t sure that he could. His hand hurt.

Spider said “Yeah?” and launched himself at Fat Charlie, pummeling him with his fists, and Fat Charlie went over, his arm around Spider’s waist, pulling Spider down with him.

They rolled up and down the hallway floor, hitting and flailing at each other. Fat Charlie half-expected Spider to launch some kind of magical counterattack or to be supernaturally strong, but the two of them seemed fairly evenly matched. Both of them fought unscientifically, like boys—like brothers—and as they fought, Fat Charlie thought he remembered doing this once before, a long, long time ago. Spider was smarter and faster, but if Fat Charlie could just get on top of him, and get Spider’s hands out of the way—

Fat Charlie grabbed for Spider’s right hand, twisted it behind Spider’s back, then sat on his brother’s chest, putting all his weight on him.

“Give in?” he asked.

“No.” Spider wriggled and twisted, but Fat Charlie was solidly in position, sitting on Spider’s chest.

“I want you to promise,” said Fat Charlie, “to get out of my life, and to leave me and Rosie alone forever.”

At this, Spider bucked, angrily, and Fat Charlie was dislodged. He landed, sprawled, on the kitchen floor. “Look,” said Spider. “I told you.”

There was a banging on the door downstairs, an imperious knocking of the kind that indicated someone needed to come in rather urgently. Fat Charlie glared at Spider, and Spider scowled at Fat Charlie, and slowly they got to their feet.

“Shall I answer it?” said Spider.

“No,” said Fat Charlie. “It’s my bloody house. And I’m going to bloody answer my own front door, thank you very much.”

“Whatever.”

Fat Charlie edged toward the stairs. Then he turned around. “Once I’ve dealt with this,” he said, “I’m dealing with you. Pack your stuff. You are on your way out.” He walked downstairs, tucking himself in, brushing the dust off, and generally trying to make it look as if he hadn’t been brawling on the floor.

He opened the door. There were two large uniformed policemen and one smaller, rather more exotic policewoman in extremely plain clothes.

“Charles Nancy?” said Daisy. She looked at him as if he was a stranger, her eyes expressionless.

“Glumph,” said Fat Charlie.

“Mister Nancy,” she said, “you are under arrest. You have the right—”

Fat Charlie turned back to the interior of the house. “Bastard!” he shouted up the stairs. “Bastard bastard bastarding bastardy bastard!”

Daisy tapped him on the arm. “Do you want to come quietly?” she asked, quietly. “Only if you don’t, we can subdue you first. I wouldn’t recommend it, though. They’re very enthusiastic subduers.”

“I’ll come quietly,” said Fat Charlie.

“That’s good,” said Daisy. She walked Fat Charlie outside and locked him into the back of a black police van.

The police searched the flat. The rooms were empty of life. At the end of the hall was a little spare bedroom, containing several boxes of books and toy cars. They poked around in there, but they didn’t find anything interesting.

Spider lay on the couch in his bedroom, and sulked. HE had gone to his room when Fat Charlie went off to answer the door. He needed to be on his own. He didn’t do confrontations terribly well. When it got to that point was normally when he went away, and right now Spider knew it was time to go, but he still didn’t want to leave.

He wasn’t sure that sending Rosie home was the right thing to have done.