“BZZZZZTTT.”
On the other side of the phone mast was a billboard. On this billboard, fading and peeling as it was, was pictured the beautiful face of the most beautiful young man in the world. He was elegant and slim and dressed in creamy white. His skin was tan and his hair was luxuriant and black. His teeth were pearly. His nose was straight. His eyes were the color of turquoise. His hands were in his pockets, and he was laughing. And over his head was just one word: BIG.9
He was cool and elegant and young and strong, even with a strip of paper peeled off his side. Snotty paused for a moment to gaze up at him.
“I’m going where you are,” Snotty said to himself. And the young man locked eyes with him and seemed to understand. As if some message had been sent and received, Snotty picked up his pace and, with a renewed sense of purpose, strode into the darkness ahead.
“BZZZZZTTT.”
Behind him, the thin blue light from the phone mast flashed again.
It lit up the waste ground with a faint and sickly glow, and Snotty could see five boys his own age standing around the cracked, weedinfested concrete of a schoolyard. They stared dejectedly at an object on the ground.
An old man lay there, moaning and clutching at his head, his pockets turned inside out. The boys had robbed him. But he had been a disappointment.
Snotty stopped to have a look. One of the boys held out the handful of change they’d gotten for their trouble. The others looked away, ashamed. They knew what a successful businessman like Snotty would think of this kind of profit margin.
“That’s it?” Snotty said, disgusted. He shook his head. “You guys should go in for another line of work. You’re no good at this one.”
There was an embarrassed pause. “Well,” said one of the boys finally, wiping his nose on his sleeve, “it’ll be better when we’re old enough to join the Police.”10
“It’s your own stupid fault,” Snotty scolded, and the boys hung their heads. “Who do you think is going to come by this place, the amount of times you’ve robbed somebody here? Show a little innovation! Try somewhere else for a change!”
The shamed expressions on the boys’ faces turned to smiles as this advice went home.
“Thanks, Snot,” one of the boys said gruffly, holding out his hand. Snotty gravely shook it, and then shook hands all around. And the boys went into a huddle to construct a new business plan.
Snotty smiled a superior little smile and continued on his way. One of the boys—his name was Stan—ran after him. (At this, the old man on the ground took advantage of the opportunity to crawl off the playground into the shelter of the boy’s toilet, where he would wait until two mornings later, when the school’s half-pay janitor would find him and call the fire brigade.)
Stan caught up with Snotty and grabbed at his arm. “Put in a good word for me with your boss,” Stan pleaded. “Put in a good word for me with Mr. Big.”
Snotty wheeled around, hands on his hips. “You’ve got no head for business,” he said shortly. “That’s a fact. Why would I tell Mr. Big about you?”
Now, it was one of Snotty’s achievements that he was known to be the personal runner of Mr. Big himself. No one knew how the rumor got started—Snotty was always tight-lipped about his own business—but nobody doubted it was true.
“I’ve got a good arm on me,” Stan whined. “And I’m loyal, really I am. You know you’ve always been my role model.”
Snotty turned again and gave Stan a look.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do.” Snotty thought that Stan might come in useful someday. You never knew.
“Aw, thanks, Snot, you’re a real pal,” Stan said. But his eyes were hard, and he might have decided to give his role model a thump just for old time’s sake, if it wasn’t for a shout now that went up from the other boys on the playground.
A dog had appeared, all gray and black with a huge maw, and the boys chased it around the schoolyard. Stan’s eyes gleamed at this. He would have been off to join them if Snotty hadn’t grabbed him by the sleeve.
“Let go, Snot,” Stan said. “Look, it’s a dog.”
“Listen,” Snotty said, hanging onto Stan’s jacket. “I just remembered. Doesn’t your aunt live in the middle of Hamercy Street?”
Stan nodded, annoyed at being kept back. The rest of the boys chased the howling dog. “Yeah, sure. The house with the Garden Gnome. She loves that Garden Gnome.”
“Listen,” Snotty insisted again. Stan was straining to be off, but Snotty held him there. “Listen,” he repeated. “Six houses there, right?” Stan nodded again. “Then how come there’s seven gardens behind?”
But Stan wasn’t listening. He yanked his arm away from Snotty and ran off to where the boys had the dog cornered. It cowered against what was left of a rusting chain link fence.
Snotty, expressionless, let him go. He continued, with his usual sense of purpose, along his way. The howls of the dog followed him, but he never allowed anything like that to distract him from business, and it was to a business meeting that he headed now.
Chapter II
AT THE CROWN AND MITRE
“Wh-wh-why c-c-can’t he b-b-be like other b-b-b-boys?” Mick complained the way he always did after he finished his third pint of watery beer. He was sitting, as he always did on a Wednesday, with Keef and Dodger in the back room of the Crown and Mitre pub on Hamercy Street. They were waiting, as they always were, for Snotty.
“He needs a good thumping,” said Keef, his tiny pig eyes shining malevolently, the way they always did behind his thick wire-rimmed glasses. “One of us should give it to him.” At this he looked at Mick.
“Then he WOULD be like all the other boys,” chortled Dodger, the way he always did. In his amusement, he, too, snorted his lager the wrong way and spewed a little bit out his nose. (This happened a lot on Hamercy Street. In fact, it was practically a sport.)11 “That’s what boys are for. I know I got thumped all the time, and look how I turned out.”
Mick and Keef turned and looked at Dodger. It didn’t seem to either of them that having been thumped when he was young had done Dodger much good. But they kept this thought to themselves.
“That’s beside the point,” Keef said impatiently.
“Wh-wh-what is the p-p-p-p...”
Dodger laughed again. More beer spurted out of his nose.
