Anansi Boys

Fat Charlie pulled the door open and stood in the hallway, blinking.

There was a room, yes; that much was still true, but it was an enormous room. A magnificent room. There were windows at the far end, huge picture windows, looking out over what appeared to be a waterfall. Beyond the waterfall, the tropical sun was low on the horizon, and it burnished everything in its golden light. There was a fireplace large enough to roast a pair of oxen, upon which three burning logs crackled and spat. There was a hammock in one corner, along with a perfectly white sofa and a four-poster bed. Near the fireplace was something that Fat Charlie, who had only ever seen them in magazines, suspected was probably some kind of Jacuzzi. There was a zebra-skin rug, and a bear pelt hanging on one wall, and there was the kind of advanced audio equipment that mostly consists of a black piece of polished plastic that you wave at. On one wall hung a flat television screen that was the width of the room that should have been there. And there was more…

“What have you done?” asked Fat Charlie. He did not go in.

“Well,” said Spider from behind him, “seeing as I’m going to be here for a few days, I thought I’d bring my stuff over.”

“Bring your stuff? Bringing your stuff is a couple of carrier bags filled with laundry, some PlayStation games and a spider plant. This is…this is…” He was out of words.

Spider patted Fat Charlie’s shoulder as he pushed past. “If you need me,” he said to his brother, “I’ll be in my room.” And he shut the door behind him.

Fat Charlie shook the doorknob. The door was now locked.

He went into the TV room, got the phone from the hall, and dialed Mrs. Higgler’s number.

“Who the hell is this at this time of the morning?” she said.

“It’s me. Fat Charlie. I’m sorry.”

“Well? What you callin‘ about?”

“Well, I was calling to ask your advice. You see, my brother came out here.”

“Your brother.”

“Spider. You told me about him. You said to ask a spider if I wanted to see him, and I did, and he’s here.”

“Well,” she said, noncommittally, “that’s good.”

“It’s not.”

“Why not? He’s family, isn’t he?”

“Look, I can’t go into it now. I just want him to go away.”

“Have you tried asking him nicely?”

“We just got through with all that. He says he isn’t going. He’s set up something that looks like the pleasure dome of Kublai Khan in my box room and, I mean, round here you need the council’s permission just to put in double glazing. He’s got some kind of waterfall in there. Not in there, it’s on the other side of the window. And he’s after my fiancée.”

“How do you know?”

“He said so.”

Mrs. Higgler said, “I’m not at my best before I have my coffee.”

“I just need to know how to make him go away.”

“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Higgler. “I will talk to Mrs. Dunwiddy about it.” She hung up.

Fat Charlie went back down to the end of the corridor and knocked on the door.

“What is it now?”

“I want to talk.”

The door clicked and swung open. Fat Charlie went inside. Spider was reclining, naked, in the hot tub. He was drinking something more or less the color of electricity from a long, frosted glass. The huge picture windows were now wide open, and the roar of the waterfall contrasted with the low, liquid jazz that emanated from hidden speakers somewhere in the room.

“Look,” said Fat Charlie, “you have to understand, this is my house.”