Keef said patiently, “is that he has money. And that money by rights belongs to us.”
“How do you figure?” said Dodger curiously.
“It’s obvious. We’re bigger than he is. And we’re stronger.”
“Th-th-that’s tr-tr-true.”
Keef leaned confidentially across the grubby table. “So here,” he said, “is what we are going to do.”
The Crown and Mitre pub was a villainous and lonely place at the end of Hamercy Street. It had once been held up on both sides by other, even older buildings—a Mission Hall and a Library—but these had long since been torn down. Now it tilted by itself over a scruffy dirt square that was covered with broken glass.12
Snotty turned into its splintered doorway and contemplated a sign hanging there. This said: NO DOGS. NO CHILDREN. NO EXCEPTIONS.
Snotty stared at this for a moment. Then he went inside. He shifted his backpack onto one shoulder, and a couple of packages wrapped in Christmas paper poked out.
“He’s a cool one,” a policeman snorted from the parked car across the street. His name was Terry, and his partner’s name was Alan.13 “And what’s with those packages?” Terry had the wild look of a man who has been sent to the wrong place by mistake, and who keeps trying to get someone in authority to fix it. Alan was more resigned: he was older and burlier and sadder, too.
Alan sighed. He watched two toddlers play a game on the sidewalk with a broken beer bottle. He was feeling more depressed by the minute.
“I’ll tell you what’s in the packages,” he said, tilting his head backward so he could stare at the ceiling of the car, which was, he thought, a nice change from the world outside. “What he has to sell. And what, you ask”—though Terry hadn’t—“does a little boy in a place like this have to sell? It’s drugs, of course. No need to say what. A little of this, a little of that. He gets it down at the docks and then hides the stuff in dolls, Easter eggs, Christmas presents—depends on the time of year. When we catch him, which we do from time to time, he says some strange man gave the packages to him. What’s the court going to say? He’s not more than twelve years old, and he looks about eight.” Alan gave a grudging laugh. “None of us thought it was true for years. Didn’t think it was possible for the kid to have the kind of brains to think something like that up.”14
Terry snorted again and grabbed the car’s wheel as if he’d forgotten it wasn’t going anywhere. “I don’t think much of the kind of brains that lead to criminal behavior,” he spat.
Alan sank further into his seat, still staring at the ceiling. He knew Terry’s type well. Always in a hurry. Always trying to start things or stop things. Always thinking he COULD start or stop things.
Alan himself had long ago given up trying to start things or stop things. In fact, he had few illusions about his impact on anything around him at all.
He sighed again. He didn’t want to have an impact. What he really wanted was a drink.
The owner of the Crown and Mitre had, like Alan, long ago given up thinking he could have any kind of influence on anything around him, and so felt helpless whenever he looked at his horrible pub. The lounge’s moldy orange-brown carpet, the stained and torn fake leather banquettes, the cheap veneer peeling off the walls, the tilting pool table with its broken leg propped up by a stack of beer mats: this was the Crown and Mitre. It had always been like this. It would always be like this. What could he do about it?
Instead of worrying, he watched the television that blared from one corner of the room. It was a way to pass the time. He was used to it. So when Snotty walked in, he was annoyed at being interrupted. Without turning, he barked, “Hey! No kids!” Then, seeing who it was, “Oh. It’s you.” He held out a hand, which Snotty shook in a businesslike way. “They’re waiting for you,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the back room. “Just like always.” Then he went back to his television show, a Lifestyle Presentation touring the Central New York home of the Duke of New York.15
Snotty stood for a moment, eyes narrowed, taking in the Duke’s way of life: the indoor swimming pool, the marble foyer, the silkcovered walls, the bath’s gold spigots in the shape of swans. Together these details made up a vision so desirable, so delightful, so different from anything that Snotty knew that he drifted into a momentary dream.
He shook himself awake, of course, back to the business at hand. But it was to prove a fatal distraction. Snotty had come into this pub so many times the same way, exchanging the same handshake with the owner, going into the same back room, doing business with the same men, that he wasn’t paying the attention that he should.
There they were, Mick, Keef, and Dodger, drinking lager just like they always did.
“H-h-hello, Sn-snotty,” Mick said, his dirty toenails sticking out of his sandals just like they always did.
“Evening, Snot,” Keef said, his little squinty eyes gleaming as usual in his fat pink face.
“Your favorite drink, Snotty, just the way you like it,” Dodger said in his ingratiating voice, the way he always did. And there, as always, was the waiting can of sweet soda pop and a cloudy glass of ice.
And Snotty, the way he always did, pulled the Christmas packages out of his backpack and exchanged them for bundles of cash. But his head was filled, not with the cold realities of commerce, but with pleasant thoughts of roast chicken, strawberry ice cream, feather pillows, and the Duke of New York asking his business advice.
From which it is clear that Snotty was finding it harder and harder to keep his mind on his job. To tell the truth, he had taken it as far as it could go. It didn’t offer him any more scope. He was bored with the whole thing.
As usual, Mick tried to stiff him. By now it was a familiar game they all played, and everyone had a good laugh when Snotty counted Mick’s bundle and found the usual one bill missing. Mick, as usual, pretended he’d miscounted, then tried to borrow the money first from Snotty, then from Keef and Dodger. He finally, grudgingly, scraped together just enough from the change in his pockets. Just like he always did.
None of their hearts were in any of this. With a sigh, Snotty collected his cash and turned to go.
He didn’t notice that Keef took Mick aside and muttered something. Or that Dodger ushered him to the door with an even more than usually obsequious gloat. If he had, it would have made him think. But his thoughts were drifting. He had grown tired of Hamercy Street. He was going stale. He needed new challenges, a change of scene.
Yes, it was time for a change, all right. It was definitely time for a change.
Terry saw Snotty come out of the pub, and hit Alan on the arm.
“Calm down,” Alan advised him wearily. Against all regulations, he lit a cigarette. “He’ll go
