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 to stash his money now. We’ll pick him up there.” Terry grunted agreement to this and sank back into his seat. “You know the boy’s game?” Alan said, pointing his cigarette at Snotty as he disappeared down the street. “He pretends he’s the go-between. Pretends he works for Mr. Big. There is no Mr. Big. That child is it. You know what he does, Terry...” At this, Alan leaned forward, eyes bright, as if he could see it all. “That boy...that CHILD goes down to the docks on his own. Tells the men there that his father sent him. Or his uncle. Or his brother. He buys the stuff cheap, brings it up here, distributes it himself. And he’s twelve years old! Think of it!”16
But Terry didn’t think. He growled instead.
Alan was too caught up in his own vision to care. “Think of the BRAIN,” he said, his eyes gleaming in the dark. “Think of the willpower! The nerve! Think of it, Terry. Could you have done anything like that when you were a kid? Could I?”
Terry gave Alan a disgusted look. Alan was going soft. Terry planned on reporting this at the right time to the right authorities, after which, with Alan gone, he, Terry, would move up in the hierarchy. In the meantime he had to keep his focus. He wished Alan would shut up so that he could concentrate on the job.
But Alan wasn’t done yet. “I look around this place,” he said. “I look at it and I think: the kids who’re stealing, setting fire to buildings, breaking car windows—they’re angry.”
The combination of Alan’s philosophizing and Terry’s distracted annoyance meant that neither of them noticed Mick come out of the Crown and Mitre and follow Snotty down the street.
“Those kids,” Alan said, still deep in his own thoughts, “they’ve got reason to be angry. At least they’re not beaten down, sitting at home watching television and letting their brains turn to mush. Maybe the angry ones can change this stinking world.”17 Here he winced at the unlikeliness of such an event. “Somehow,” he trailed off.
Terry started up the car. “I like the world the way it is, thanks,” he said. “Tell me where we’re going, would you, please?”
Alan sighed again and pointed ahead. “Up there,” he said. “Back Hamercy Street.” And the car lurched away.
Chapter III
IN THE SEVENTH GARDEN
And all that time, the Seventh Garden waited behind the six houses on Hamercy Street.
The alley of Back Hamercy Street was an L-shaped dirt path that curved around the houses in front of it, and it was here that Snotty went now. “This is the last time,” he thought as he walked into its shadows and heard the familiar sound of water dripping—plop, plop—down the fences and the walls. A rusted skip sank into the dirt at the side of the lane. It waited there for him, buried to its belly in dirt and filth, stewing in old rags, yellowed newspapers, and bits of barbed wire.
Snotty’s look softened. This was familiar. It was what he knew. “Now then,” he scolded himself. “Don’t start going sentimental on me.” There would be other skips, he knew, in other towns—bigger and better skips, and filled with a higher quality trash, too.
With that in mind, Snotty now set to work, methodically digging in a special, particularly disgusting spot marked by an old green and gold coffee can. It didn’t take long for him to uncover a battered metal box, flaking red and gray paint, which he opened. He gave a contented sigh.
The box was full of money.18 Snotty scooped this up and would have stuffed it in his pockets—except there was this sound.
Instinctively he shoved the money back in the box, and shoved the box back under the trash. Then he looked around.
That was when he saw the dog. It was standing there, quiet. It stared at him.
“Hey there,” Snotty said in an uneasy voice. “Heh, heh.” But the dog just stood there staring.
“What are you looking at?” Snotty was annoyed at being interrupted, but he was curious, too. The dog was covered with bloodmatted fur, the result of its recent encounter with Stan and the boys.
“Go on,” Snotty muttered halfheartedly. “Shoo.” He and the dog looked at each other. Snotty couldn’t help being impressed by how big it was, and how it just stood there looking at him. The whole thing excited him in a way he couldn’t figure out, so he did what he usually did when in doubt. He picked up a rock and threw it.
The rock hit the dog’s side with a dull thud, and Snotty tensed, getting ready to run, and eyeing the exact fence over which he reckoned he could get a good head start. But