"He's gone to bed," Dallow said. Pinkie rang the bell, holding his finger on the switch. Low shuttered shops ran off on either hand; a tram went by with nobody in it, labelled Depot only, ringing and swinging down the empty road, the conductor drowsing on a seat inside, the roof gleaming from the storm. Pinkie kept his finger on the bell.
4 'What made Spicer say that about me marrying?" the Boy said.
"He just thought it'd close her clapper," Dallow said.
"She's not what keeps me awake," the Boy said, pressing on the bell. A light went on upstairs, a window creaked up, and a voice called: "Who's that?"
"It's me," the Boy said. "Pinkie."
"What dp you want? Why don't you come around in the morning?"
"I want to talk to you, Brewer."
"I've got nothing to talk about, Pinkie, that can't wait."
"You'd better open up, Brewer. You don't want the mob along here."
"The old woman's awful sick, Pinkie. I don't want any trouble. She's asleep. She hasn't slept for three nights."
"This'll wake her," the Boy said with his finger on the bell. A slow goods train went by across the viaduct, shaking smoke down into the Lewes Road.
"Leave off, Pinkie, and I'll open up."
Pinkie shivered as he waited, his gloved hand deep in his damp pocket. Brewer opened the door, a stout elderly man in soiled white pyjamas. The bottom button was missing and the coat swung from the bulging belly and the deep navel. "Come in, Pinkie," he said, "and walk quiet. The old woman's bad. I've been worrying my head off."
"That why you haven't paid your subscription.
Brewer?" the Boy said. He looked with contempt down the narrow hall the shell case converted into an umbrella stand, the moth-eaten stag's head bearing on one horn a bowler hat, a steel helmet used for ferns. Kite ought to have got them into better money than this.
Brewer had only just graduated from the street-corner, saloon-bar betting. A welsher. It was no good trying to draw more than ten per cent of his bets.
Brewer said: "Come in here and be snug. It's warm in here. What a cold night!" He had a hollow cheery manner even in pyjamas. He was like a legend on a racing card: The Old Firm You Can Trust Bill Brewer. He lit the gas fire, turned on a stand lamp in a red silk shade with a bobble fringe. The light glowed on a silver-plated biscuit box, a framed wedding group.
"Have a spot of Scotch?" Brewer invited them.
"You know I don't drink," the Boy said.
"Ted will," Brewer said.
"I don't mind a spot," Dallow said. He grinned and said: "Here's how."
"We've called for that subscription, Brewer," the Boy said.
The man in white pyjamas hissed soda into his glass.
His back turned, he watched Pinkie in the glass above the sideboard until he caught the other's eye. He said: "I been worried, Pinkie. Ever since Kite was croaked."
"Well?" the Boy said.
"It's like this. I said to myself if Kite's mob can't even protect " He stopped suddenly and listened.
"Was that the old woman?" Very faintly from the room above came the sound of coughing. Brewer said: "She's woke up. I got to go and see her."
"You stay here," the Boy said, "and talk."
"She'll want turning."
"When we've finished you can go."
Cough, cough, cough: it was like a machine trying to start and failing. Brewer said desperately: "Be human. She won't know where I've got to. I'll only be a minute."
"You don't need to be longer than a minute here," the Boy said. "All we want's what's due to us. Twenty pounds."
"I haven't got it in the house. Honest I haven't."
"That's too bad for you." The Boy drew off his right glove.
"It's like this, Pinkie. I paid it all out yesterday. To Colleoni."
"What in Jesus' name," the Boy said, "has Colleoni to do with it?"
Brewer went rapidly and desperately on, listening to the cough, cough, cough upstairs. "Be reasonable, Pinkie. I can't pay both of you. I'd have been carved if I hadn't paid Colleoni."
"Is he in Brighton?"
"He's stopping at the Cosmopolitan,"
"And Tate Tate's paid Colleoni too?"
"That's right, Pinkie. He's running the business in a big way." A big way it was like an accusation, a reminder of the brass bedstead at Billy's, the crumbs on the mattress.
"You think I'm finished?" the Boy said.
"Take my advice, Pinkie, and go in with Colleoni."
The Boy suddenly drew his hand back and slashed with his razored nail at Brewer's cheek. He struck blood out along the cheekbone. "Don't," Brewer said, "don't," backing against the sideboard, upsetting the biscuit box. He said: "I've got protection. You be careful. I've got protection."
Dallow refilled his glass with Brewer's whisky. The Boy said: "Look at him. He's got protection." Dallow took a splash of soda.
"You want any more?" the Boy said. "That was just to show you who's protecting you."
"I can't pay both, Pinkie. God's sake, keep back."
"Twenty pounds is what we've come for, Brewer."
"Colleoni'll have my blood, Pinkie."
"You needn't worry. We'll protect you."
Cough, cough, cough, went the woman upstairs, and then a faint cry like a sleeping child's. "She's calling me," Brewer said.
"Twenty pounds."
"I don't keep my money in here. Let me fetch it."
"You go with him, Dallow," the Boy said. "I'll wait here," and he sat down on a straight carved diningroom chair and stared out at the mean street, the dustbins along the pavement, the vast shadow of the viaduct. He sat perfectly still with his grey ancient eyes giving nothing away.
A big way Colleoni come into it in a big way he knew there wasn't a soul in the mob he could trust except perhaps Dallow. That didn't matter. You couldn't make mistakes when you trusted nobody. / cat coasted cautiously round a bin on the pavement stopped suddenly, crouched back, and in the semi-dark its agate eyes stared up at the Boy. Boy and cat, they didn't stir, watching each other, until Dallow returned.
"I've got the money, Pinkie," Dallow said. The Boy turned his head and grinned at Dallow; suddenly his face was convulsed: he sneezed twice, violently. Overhead the coughing died away. "He won't forget this visit," Dallow said. He added anxiously: "You ought to have a spot of whisky, Pinkie. You've caught cold."
"I'm all right," the Boy said. He got up. "We won't stop and say good-bye."
The Boy led the way down the middle of the empty road, between the tram lines. He said suddenly: "Do you think I'm finished, Dallow?"
"You?" Dallow said. "Why, you haven't even begun." They walked for a while in silence, the water from the gutters dripped on the pavement. Then Dallow spoke: "You worrying about Colleoni?"
"I'm not worrying."
Dallow said suddenly: "You're worth a dozen Colleonis. The Cosmopolitan!" he exclaimed and spat.
"Kite thought he'd go in for the automatic machines. He learned different. Now Colleoni thinks the coast's clear. He's branching out."
"He ought to have learned from Hale."
"Hale died natural."
Dallow laughed. "Tell that to Spicer." They turned the corner by the Royal Albion and the sea was with them again the tide had turned a movement, a splashing, a darkness. The Boy looked suddenly sideways and up at Dallow he could trust Dallow receiving from the ugly and broken face a sense of triumph and companionship and superiority. He felt as a physically weak but cunning schoolboy feels who has attached to himself in an undiscriminating fidelity the strongest boy in the school. "You mug," he said and pinched Dallow's arm. It was almost like affection.