“I’ll stay well back from things,” said he. “But I want you to remember what I taught you, and you’ll be fine.”
I, who had grown more tense as we had moved from one dive to the next, took heart from what Mr. Perkins had said: I had been taught; I was ready.
Bunkins appeared at the door; he beckoned us inside.
Mr. Perkins held me back. He took his club and tucked it into my belt right at the small of my back.
“Don’t use it unless you’ve a call to,” said he to me.
And so we went inside. Mr. Perkins left me and went to stand at the bar. I went to Jimmie Bunkins, who had reentered the place. He said nothing but simply pointed. It was near as dark as it was outside in the first hour of night. An oil lantern bumed at the bar, a fire blazed in the fireplace, and there were candles alit at the few tables where drinkers sat. Thus, with so little illumination, it was not altogether easy to locate him I sought. As it happened, I heard him — that silly, whinnying giggle — ere my eyes had penetrated the gloom to the rear of the room. For yes, there he was, sitting at a table with four of his fellows — Jackie Carver.
I could not make out at such a distance, and in poor light, if the coat he wore was mine, and so I moved towards him, threading a path through the tables. Bunkins followed. As I approached. Carver saw me, recognized me, and left off his chatter. By the time I reached his table, I had seen the coat welclass="underline" bottle-green it was, with white trim, and unmistakably my own. All eyes at the table were upon me as I took my place close before him and waited.
“What do you want?” asked he. with a most theatrical sneer.
“My coat,” said I.
“Your coat?” He laughed his little giggle. “This here’s a man’s coat. Last time I saw you, you was wearin’ women’s duds, makin’ out you was a bawd. You got no right to wear a man’s coat.”
This caused hilarity among his table-mates. While he sat smirking, the rest fell into great guffaws; one of them, a villainous-looking fellow of about thirty, pounded the table with glee. All the rest in the place had fallen silent. The barkeep moved towards us.
I waited until the laughter had subsided. “Nevertheless, I want it.”
“Well, you’ll not have it.” He stared hatefully up at me from his place at the end of the oblong table.
And then, to break the contact with his eyes, I reached my right hand before him and snapped my fingers. His eyes shifted involuntarily to them, as I knew they would. And in one swift, planned movement, I grabbed his ear with my left hand, twisted it, and pulled up. He had no choice but to rise, or have his ear torn off. When he was halfway to his feet, I gave a great push to his head and released my grip. He fell back in a clutter against the chair and the wall but managed to keep upright. The others at the table were too shocked by this event to do more than look wide-eyed from him to me. Then did he reach behind him as if to draw his knife, yet allowed his hand to remain there as a threat.
“You know who I am?” he shouted. “What I can do to you?”
It seemed to me I had heard that before. “Yes,” I shouted back, “you call yourself Jackie Carver, and you are a pimp and a fraud and a back-stabber, and you would rather face the Devil himself than any mortal man in a proper fight.”
”Take it outsider’
It was the barkeep. He leaned forward over the bar, a pistol in each hand. Though he had not cocked them, it was plain from his face he was willing to shoot.
“Come along,” I called, then I turned, brushed past Bun-kins, and headed for the door.
There was a general scramble for the outside. The dive emptied of drinkers who were eager to be audience to the fracas. Yet space was given me as one of the principals, and I emerged into the evening, feeling Bunkins pummeling my back.
“Oh, you called him out proper, chum,” he crowed. “I never seen it done better.”
“But where can we go?”
“Over here — the alley.”
Bunkins took me by the elbow and led me to the very alley wherein the body of Poll Tarkin was discovered. We led the crowd. I heard mutterings of wagers placed, odds given. It seemed that in spite of a creditable performance inside the dive, I was not much favored.
I took a position well inside the alley and waited as the crowd poured in, taking up the space round me. After taking my old coat from me, Bunkins made a circle of the group, pushing them back.
“Give them room — back, back — give them room,” he chanted.
At last my opponent arrived, accompanied by his four seconds. They chortled, and talked encouragingly to him of the great blood-letting that was soon to follow. For his part, he seemed more somber here than in the gin shop; he nodded, accepting their heartening words, yet he did not smirk nor smile, and neither did he giggle. I reached back to Mr. Perkins’s club to make sure that it was tight enough in my belt to stay in place yet loose enough to be available when it was needed. Satisfied, I advanced to show that I was ready.
He shed his coat — my coat — and muttered something to his fellows. Then, in one final bit of bravado, he shouted to the crowd: “Be it known to all, this ain’t about no toggy. It’s about a moll, one of my bawds he wanted for his own self. She wanted no part of him. She — ”
Through this declamation, as he looked left and right to his audience, I had continued my advance upon him. Too late he realized how close to him I had come, and as he broke off his speechifying, he barely had time to raise his arms in his own defense, much less grab behind him for his knife.
I covered the three paces between us in two leaping bounds and delivered two blows to his face, one each with my left and right fist, then did I give him a stout kick in the kneecap. He collapsed, falling down upon the other knee.
Then did I what I should not have done. I stepped back, allowing him to recover himself. This was partly to give me opportunity to bring feeling back into my fingers, for toughened though my hands were by so many days of work upon the bag in the stable yard, they were not prepared to meet the bones of his face. Henceforward I would hit in the soft areas of the -
His knife was out. He made a slashing arc at my middle. He had a quick hand, and indeed would have cut me but for the leap back I took. Then was he up, knife in hand, lunging at me, and I could do naught but keep moving backwards. I had no chance to pull loose the club from my belt, for both hands were needed for balance.
and ahhs with each lunge he took, for with each they anticipated a stain of crimson. This was what they had come to see.
But then did I do me a little dance, feinting left and leaping right, away from the blade. He followed the feint and quite passed me by, yet before he did, I caught him with a kick in his hip which threw him off balance; he staggered clumsily to regain it.
This gave me the chance I needed to withdraw the club from my belt. I held it in my right hand and slapped my left palm with it. The sharp pang that I felt brought new confidence to me. I had drilled with it often.
He had driven me back with a series of lunges. Would he continue? Or would he come to me and slash, as he had first done? I must be prepared for either attack.
He lunged.
I leapt right again, away from the blade, but he seemed to be prepared for this, for he pivoted in my direction and might have done me harm, had I not, as I lept, hit him hard across the ear with the club. I ducked behind him and delivered another blow to the crown of his head.