Young Petrella by Michael Gilbert Read Free Book Online

quickly over his shoulder and his assistant ducked through the door. But Len saw him go.
    He climbed to his feet, walked across to the bar, and said, “The boyfriend’s gone for help? All right. Don’t bother about that drink. We’ll put it on the slate this time.”
    He shook his sleeve, then drew his hand twice, firmly, across the bar counter. The landlord was still staring at the cross, cut a clean half-inch into the polished wood, when the door slammed behind the last of the boys. He wiped his forehead with the beer cloth, and breathed out deeply.
    On the pavement the little army gathered itself together.
    “Blow me down,” said Timmy, “there’s that Prophet. We oughter do something about that beard of his. Can’t be healthy. What say we trim it for him, Len—?”
    He broke off. Len wasn’t looking at the Prophet. His eyes were on a spot, in the shadows, ten yards along the pavement. He moved quickly. The woman looked over her shoulder, seemed half inclined to run for it, then stopped.
    Len walked right up to her. She stepped backwards, into the deep doorway of a shop. Len continued to advance until his face was almost touching hers.
    “Who’ve you been drinking with tonight?” he said.
    “I never.”
    “Soon as my back’s turned, you’re out of the house with some pretty boy.”
    “I came out to buy some cigarettes.”
    “Two hours after the shops shut?”
    “From the machine.”
    “Who’ve you been with?”
    “I haven’t been with anyone.” Her head was twisting from side to side, hopelessly. She was not looking for help. She was nerving herself for what was to come.
    A sudden, wicked, stinging slap on the side of the face. Then another. She shook her head. There was a small, dark drop of blood where Len’s ring had cut her cheek open.
    “Are you going to talk?” said Len. “Or do you want I should use the knuckles on you?”
    “Leave that woman alone,” said a deep voice.
    The Prophet loomed in a doorway.
    Len looked up. The madness slowly left him. “You go and chase yourself,” he said. “She’s my wife. I can talk to her if I want.”
    “I say you shall not strike her,” said the Prophet.
    “Fix him,” said Len shortly.
    It was a good fight, while it lasted. One against five is long odds, but the Prophet had a staff and knew how to use it. His first, scything movement cut the nearest boy’s legs from under him and his second put Timmy Harrington backwards into a shop window. After that he used the point. When the police arrived, and the boys scattered, he was still on his feet.
    Petrella, aroused by the sound of breaking glass, had climbed on to a crate and watched the proceedings over the fence. He saw no reason to interfere. When it was all over he collected his raincoat, came softly out, and went home to bed.
    He realised that it was no use waiting any longer for the Bird that night.
    The Cats hung out in a loft above a junk store in Parson Street. It was a good place for them, because it had six different ways in and out. And they knew them all. Here Len dispensed justice and wisdom to his followers.
    Sober, he was something of a tactician. Under his rule the Cats had learned to steal only money. And to spend it steadily, not in sudden, suspicious bouts of affluence. He had taught them that the clinching argument was a blow. You go in, he said, and you ask for sutthink that costs a few bob and you give ’em a pound note, see? That means they got to open the till. Right? Then you smash ’em, grab what’s in the till, and beat it. No clever stuff. Under his guidance they had prospered.
    Until recently.
    Then came the carefully planned combined operation against a larger shop, with a manager and two girl assistants, which might have been black disaster. At the very last moment, warned by some underground sense, Len had called it off. He had then scouted round by himself, and spotted the police tender parked behind the hoarding across the way.
    He had also seen something