Free The Day of the Gecko by Robert G. Barrett Page B

forget about tomorrow. Yeah, righto. I’ll be in touch.
    Somehow Norton managed to stumble through the front door, then into Susie’s flat, and hit the correct security buttons. He fell out of his clothes, had a drink of water and cleaned his teeth and was feeling no pain when he fell onto Susie’s bed. But Norton knew he would more than likely be feeling it in the morning, as well as remorse. So much for his quiet, laid-back week at Susie’s, taping CDs. Now he’d have some ex-army mate of Eddie’s staying with him. The galloping major. The galloping gecko’d probably be more like it. Norton yawned boozily and switched off the bedside lamp. Before long, Susie’s map of the universe began to materialise on the bedroom wall. Les stared at it for a few moments, yawned boozily again, then laughed mirthlessly at this sudden and almost unexpected predicament. Ahh, who gives a stuff anyway. Next thing, Norton was lost in the cosmos again and snoringthe sound sleep of the drunk; at times it almost sounded like the first stages of a Saturn rocket taking off.
    Les had felt worse, but he’d also felt a lot better, when he surfaced around nine that morning and blundered from the bedroom to the bathroom, then into the kitchen. While he was standing there in his Speedos getting some coffee together, he figured he had about a warp five headache, so he blundered back into the bathroom, found what he was looking for and swallowed what he hoped would be enough to ease the nagging pain coming from somewhere in the middle of his head. After some fruit and cereal, toast and coffee, Norton felt at least good enough to start blundering through the day. The best thing to do, however, would be to have a run and sweat all the poisons and toxins out, then drink about a bucket of cold water. Les went into the lounge room and started putting on his Nikes while he thought about what he had to do today and what was going on. What
did
he have to do today and just what
was
going on again? Norton was probing through the boozy mists of his mind of last night at the club when the phone rang.
    â€˜Hello?’
    â€˜G’day, Les. It’s Eddie. How are you?’
    â€˜I’ve been better.’
    Eddie gave a bit of a chuckle. ‘I know what you mean. Plenty of piss and a few laughs going round with the boys. It’s a recipe for disaster.’
    â€˜Yeah,’ agreed Norton. ‘And it’s lucky we don’t have to do it too often.’
    Eddie took Norton’s subtle hint. ‘Yeah, luckily.Anyway, you know what you have to do today?’
    Les nodded over the phone. ‘Yeah. 2.15, Aunty Vera arrives. And I see that she gets here safe and sound.’
    â€˜That’s it. I’ll call round at three and we all might have a nice cup of tea. It’ll be good to see Aunt Vera again.’
    â€˜You know where the place is?’
    â€˜Yeah. You gave it to me last night. Jesus, your handwriting’s a bit rough when you’re full of ink.’
    â€˜Eddie, I’m just on my way for a run. And I guarantee it’s gonna be a lot fuckin’ rougher than my handwriting.’
    â€˜I’ll see you at three.’
    â€˜See you then, mate.’
    Les looked at the phone for a moment, closed his eyes and shook his head reluctantly; what he would have preferred was another two hours of sleep. Instead, he laced up his Nikes, got into a pair of shorts, a T-shirt and sweatband, locked the flat up and walked outside, ready for about an hour of misery.
    The wall of letterboxes opposite the comer where Macabee had been sitting was just high enough to do some easy stretches. Les limbered up for a few minutes and had his head down most of the time, so if any people walking past took any notice, he didn’t see them. It wasn’t a bad day; sunny with a few clouds around and a light nor’-easter. Norton didn’t need any competition and he didn’t need to do it too tough;