‘I told ’em! I told ’em! Bugrem!’
‘Probably yes,’ said William. ‘He hangs put with a bunch of . . . er . . . unfortunates who live under one of the bridges. Well, not exactly “hangs out”. More “droops”.’
50
‘Well now,’ said Gunilla, waving the copy of the Times at Ron, ‘you can tell them that if they can sell these to people for twenty pence each, I’ll let you keep one nice shiny penny.’
‘Yeah? And you can put yer nice shiny penny where the sun don’t shine,’ said Ron.
‘Oh, so you–‘ Gunilla began.
William laid a hand on his arm. ‘Sorry, just a minute– What was that you said, Ron?’ he said.
‘Bugrit,’ said Foul Ole Ron.
It had sounded like Ron’s voice and it had seemed to come from the general area of Ron’s face, it was just that it had demonstrated a coherence you didn’t often get.
‘You want more than a penny?’ said William carefully.
‘Got to be worth five pence a time,’ said Ron. More or less.
For some reason William’s gaze was dragged down to the small grey dog. It returned it amiably and said, ‘Woof?’
He looked back up again. ‘Are you all right, Foul Ole Ron?’ he said.
‘Gottle o’ geer, gottle o’ geer,’ said Ron mysteriously.
‘All right . . . two pence,’ said Gunilla.
‘Four,’ Ron seemed to say. ‘But let’s not mess about, okay? One dollar per thirty?’
‘It’s a deal,’ said Goodmountain, who spat on his hand and would have held it out to seal the contract if William hadn’t gripped it urgently.
‘Don’t.’
‘What’s wrong?’
William sighed. ‘Have you got any horribly disfiguring diseases?’
‘No!’
‘Do you want some?’
‘Oh.’ Gunilla lowered his hand. ‘You tell your friends to get round here right now, okay?’ he said. He turned to William.
‘Trustworthy, are they?’
‘Well . . . sort of,’ said William. ‘It’s probably not a good idea to leave paint thinners around.’
Outside, Foul Ole Ron and his dog ambled down the street. And the strange thing was that a conversation was going on,
51
even though there was technically only one person there.
‘See? I told you. You just let me do the talkin’, all right?’
‘Bugrit.’
‘Right. You stick with me and you won’t go far wrong.’
‘Bugrit.’
‘Really? Well, I s’pose that’ll have to do. Bark, bark.’
~blk~
Twelve people lived under the Misbegot Bridge and in a life of luxury, although luxury is not hard to achieve when you define it as something to eat at least once a day and especially when you have such a broad definition of ‘something to eat’. Technically they were beggars, although they seldom had to beg. Possibly they were thieves, although they only took what had been thrown away, usually by people hurrying to be out of their presence.
Outsiders considered that the leader of the group was Coffin Henry, who would have been the city’s champion expectorator if anyone else had wanted the title. But the group had the true democracy of the voteless. There was Arnold Sideways, whose lack of legs only served to give him an extra advantage in any pub fight, where a man with good teeth at groin height had it all his own way. And if it wasn’t for the duck whose presence on his head he consistently denied, the Duck Man would have been viewed as well-spoken and educated and as sane as the next man. Unfortunately, the next man was Foul Ole Ron.
The other eight people were Altogether Andrews.
Altogether Andrews was one man with considerably more than one mind. In a rest state, when he had no particular problem to confront, there was no sign of this except a sort of background twitch and flicker as his features passed randomly under the control of, variously, Jossi, Lady Hermione, Little Sidney, Mr Viddle, Curly, the Judge and Tinker; there was also Burke, but the crew had only ever seen Burke once and never wanted to again, so the other seven personalities kept him buried. Nobody in the body answered to the name of Andrews. In the opinion of the Duck Man, who was probably the best in the crew at thinking in a straight line, Andrews had probably been some innocent and hospitable person of a psychic disposition who had simply been overwhelmed by the colonizing souls.
52
Only among the gentle crew under the bridge could a consensus person like Andrews find an accommodating niche. They’d welcomed him, or them, to the fraternity around the smoky fire. Someone who wasn’t the same person for more than five minutes at a time could fit right in.
One other thing that united the crew – although probably nothing could unite Altogether Andrews – was a readiness to believe that a dog could talk. The group around the smouldering fire believed they had heard a lot of things talk, such as walls. A dog was easy by comparison. Besides, they respected the fact that Gaspode had the sharpest mind of the lot and never drank anything that corroded the container.
‘Let’s try this again, shall we?’ he said. ‘If you sell thirty of the things, you’ll get a dollar. A whole dollar. Got that?’
‘Bugrit.’
‘Quack.’
‘Haaargghhh . . . gak!’
‘How much is that in old boots?’
Gaspode sighed. ‘No, Arnold. You can use the money to buy as many old–‘
There was a rumble from Altogether Andrews, and the rest of the crew went very still. When Altogether Andrews was quiet for a while you never knew who he was going to be.
There was always the possibility that it would be Burke.
‘Can I ask a question?’ said Altogether Andrews, in a rather hoarse treble.
The crew relaxed. That sounded like Lady Hermione. She wasn’t a problem.
‘Yes . . . your ladyship?’ said Gaspode.
‘This wouldn’t be . . . work, would it?’
The mention of the word sent the rest of the crew into a fugue of stress and bewildered panic.
‘Haaaruk . . . gak!’
‘Bugrit!’
‘Quack!’
‘No, no, no,’ said Gaspode hurriedly. ‘It’s hardly work, is it? Just handing out stuff and takin’ money? Doesn’t sound like work to me.’
53
‘I ain’t working!’ shouted Coffin Henry. I am socially inadequate in the whole area of doin’ anything!’
‘We do not work,’ said Arnold Sideways. ‘We is gentlemen of les-u-are.’
‘Ahem,’ said Lady Hermione.
‘Gentlemen and ladies of les-u-are,’ said Arnold gallantly.
‘This is a very nasty winter. Extra money would certainly come in handy,’ said the Duck Man.
‘What for?’ said Arnold.
‘We could live like kings on a dollar a day, Arnold,’
‘What, you mean someone’d chop our heads off?’.
‘No, I–‘
‘Someone’d climb up inside the privy with a red-hot poker and–‘
‘No! I meant–‘
‘Someone’d drown us in a butt of wine?’
‘No, that’s dying like kings, Arnold,’
‘I shouldn’t reckon there’s a butt of wine big enough that you couldn’t drink your way out of it,’ muttered Gaspode. ‘So, what about it, masters? Oh, and mistress, o’ course. Shall I– shall Ron tell that lad we’re up for it?’
‘Indeed,’
‘Okay,’
‘Gawwwark . . . pt!’
‘Bugrit!’
They looked at Altogether Andrews. His lips moved, his face flickered. Then he held up five democratic fingers.
‘The ayes have it,’ said Gaspode.
~blk~
Mr Pin lit a cigar. Smoking was his one vice. At least, it was his only vice that he thought of as a vice. All the others were just job skills.
Mr Tulip’s vices were also limitless, but he owned up to cheap aftershave because a man has to drink something. The drugs didn’t count, if only because the only time he’d ever got real ones was when they’d robbed a horse doctor and he’d taken a couple of big pills that had made every vein in his body stand out like a purple hosepipe.
54
The pair were not thugs. At least they did not see themselves as thugs. Nor were they thieves. At least they never thought of themselves as thieves. They did not think of themselves as assassins. Assassins were posh and had rules. Pin and Tulip – the New Firm, as Mr Pin liked to refer to themselves – did not have rules.
They thought of themselves as facilitators. They were men who made things happen, men who were going places.
It has to be added that when one says ‘they thought’ it means ‘Mr Pin thought’. Mr Tulip used his head all the time, from a distance of about eight inches, but he was not, except in one or two unexpected areas, a man given much to using his brain. On the whole, he left Mr Pin to do the polysyllabic cogitation.
Mr Pin, on the other hand, was not very good at sustained, mindless violence, and admired the fact that Mr Tulip had an apparently bottomless supply. When they had first met, and had recognized in each other the qualities that would make their partnership greater than the sum of its parts, he’d seen that Mr Tulip was not, as he appeared to the rest of the world, just another nutjob. Some negative qualities can reach a pitch of perfection that changes their very nature, and Mr Tulip had turned anger into an art.