“Oh, hullo, Nestor,” Albert Duggan grinned.“I thought you were out for the night. You give me a start.”
“Sorry, Bert. Had one too many at the Cockand – ”
A pound-note fluttered out of Duggan’s laponto the wooden floor.
“I thought you was broke,” Nestor said, morepuzzled than annoyed.
“That I was, cousin. Indeed I was. But Iopened a letter I got from the lawyers in Montreal this afternoonand found these crisp banknotes tucked inside.”
“Yer legacy?”
Duggan reached down, picked the stray bill upwith two fingers, and proffered it to Nestor. “Just anotherinstallment, they say. A tidbit, really. But it means I can pay youback and give you this week’s rent.”
“I ain’t never seen a lawyer’s letter,”Nestor said, taking the money.
Duggan improved upon his grin. “Oh, I tossedit in the stove a while ago. No need to keep it, eh?”
“I guess not.”
“Not like it was a personal letter oranything. Just a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo.”
“No.” Nestor pulled up a rickety chair andsettled down opposite his cousin, his gaze fixed on the whiskey-jugbeside the candle on the table. “You go out tonight?”
The grin froze on Duggan’s face and slowlyreconstituted itself as a grimace. “I went to The Sailor’s Arms fora drink.”
Something in his cousin’s face alarmedNestor. “Ya didn’t cause any trouble there, did ya?”
“The only trouble was that ape, Budge. We hada bit of run-in – and he got the worst of it.” But the bruise onDuggan’s cheek suggested his “victory” had not been a clear-cuttriumph.
“Jesus, Bert, you’re gonna queer it fer medown there.”
“Don’t sweat, Nestor. The bastard may’veheard my name from one of the tars in the place, but he don’t knowwho I am or anything about the two of us. I made damn sureof that.”
“Well, I hope so. This is the first payin’job I’ve had in this town. It ain’t much, but it let’s us live instyle, don’t it?”
Duggan guffawed, but the shadows thrown up bythe candle exaggerated the sharp edges of his features, and for amoment he resembled a gargoyle chortling at some grotesque joke.“Nestor, if this is style, I’d hate to see a hovel!”
Nestor looked stricken. “Then why’d you agreeto move in here with me?” He grabbed the jug and tipped it up tohis lips. It was, incredibly, almost full.
“No need to get your balls twisted,” Duggansaid. “I threw in with ya because you’re kin, my mother’s sister’sboy. And I knew we weren’t gonna be here for very long.”
“Whaddya mean?” Nestor let his fear show. Hedidn’t take well to change as it invariably meant a change for theworse.
“We’re gonna be rich, Nestor. Rich asCroesus. It was all in that letter. And very, very soon.”
“In the letter you burned?”
Duggan gave Nestor a searching glance, andsaid, “There was only the money and the good news in it – nodetails, yet. But they’ll come. And when they do, you and me aregoin’ to open up a public house of our own and put thatson-of-a-bitch Budge out of business!”
His brain already fuzzy with drink, Nestortried to take this startling news in. “But it’s Missus Budge thatowns the place,” he said. “An’ she’s a nice lady. Tough, she is,but nice all the same.”
“I’m not interested in the lady. But I gotthat husband of hers by the short hairs.” The fierce, gloating joyin Duggan’s huge, black eyes gave Nestor a further fright.
“You ain’t plannin’ on doin’ nothin’stupid?”
“Only stupid people do stupid things. And I’mnot stupid. No, sir. You should’ve seen me there tonight. Remember,last week, when you told me you thought Tobias Budge might becuddling that barmaid of his?”
Nestor paled. He had only a hazy recollectionof that conversation, fuelled as it was by a jug of whiskey notunlike the one he was now fingering. But he recalled enough to be -suddenly – very, very anxious. “Fer God’s sake, Bert, you won’t gotellin’ the missus! I only seen him give the girl a pat on thebehind.”
“He’s been pattin’ her in places other’n herass,” Duggan leered.
“Whaddya mean?”
“I smooth-talked her again this evening whenBudge was busy. Then when she was least expecting it, I asked herhow her sweetheart was doing and whether or not he knew about thebun in her oven.”
Nestor dropped the jug onto the table, andDuggan deftly stopped it from tipping over. “Holy Jesus – ”
“And it worked, cousin. Oh, how it worked.She went all red, which you’d expect, then she went white as aghost and looked over at Budge behind the bar. It was as clear asday. I’d struck the mother-lode!”
“But if you go breathin’ a word of this,Budge’ll sack me an’ come gunnin’ fer you! He’s a gorilla when he’sriled up!”
“Quit your worrying and have another drink.You don’t get it, do you? Now that we’ve dug up this dirt on Budge,even if he’s smart enough to figure out who we are, it’s himthat’s got to be afraid of us. Your job was never safer thanit is now.”
“So you’re not gonna tell on him?”
Duggan did not directly answer the question.He wiped the mouth of the jug on his sleeve, took a sip of SwampySam’s bootleg whiskey, and placed the jug back in front of Nestor.“You’re a snitch for the police, aren’t you? You know the value ofinformation – to the penny. You might say that I’m learning thegame from my cousin, eh?”
Nestor couldn’t quite follow the logic ofthis remark, but he was so relieved that Duggan was not about to doanything rash in the way of petty revenge that he relaxed visiblyand took another gulp of hooch.
“In The Blue Ox yesterday some fella told meyou were the best snitch in Cobb’s stable,” Duggan said after theyhad consumed several more draughts. “And that’s not the first timeI’ve heard it!”
Nestor grinned, exposing his gums and asingle, blackened tooth. “You bet I am. That Itchy Quick goesaround braggin’ about how great he is, but that kindaboastin’ can get a fella’s legs broken. I still got both kneesworkin’ ‘cause I know when to talk and when to shut up.”
Duggan made as if to drink, paused, and saidquietly, “You happen to see Cobb in The Cock and Bull tonight?”
Nestor blinked several times, a sure signthat he was preparing to lie. “No, I didn’t.”
“Hadn’t got anything new to tell him, eh?”Duggan said in what he took to be a light, teasing tone.
Nestor bridled. “I always got somethin’ totell him. But there’s things I know I don’t tell to nobody. I knowright from wrong.”
Duggan grinned. He was recalling a similarscene as far back as September, when he had coaxed Nestor into astate of near-inebriation and taunted him in the very same way . ..
“So, cousin, you’re forever bragging aboutthe dozens of secrets you’ve dug up on your own, but you don’t eversay why I ought to believe you,” he had said then, pretending totake a great swig of liquor, as he had done this evening.
Nestor, never overly astute even when sober,had taken the bait. “Think I just make things up, don’t ya?”
Duggan had become instantly conciliatory.“I’m your cousin, Nestor – the guy who’s goin’ to share hislegacy with you and haul you out of this shack and get you what youdeserve.” Duggan’s words appeared to be somewhat slurred by thewhiskey, but no liquor could dull the man’s cunning.
“That’s true,” Nestor sniffed. “You’re theonly livin’ relalive I’ve got in the whole wide world.”
“So, if you’ve got onto something juicy, yououghta be able to tell your sole, living blood relation,right?”
Nestor had smirked, a look he had fewoccasions to exercise. “Itchy Quick told me this in his cupsyesterday. He was up at that Oakwood place burnin’ some stumps ferthat fat English lordy-dah – this was back in the summer – an’ heseen the Lady What’s-her-name in the flower bed with her legsspread an’ one of our local gents pumpin’ away between ‘em.”