other two were watching him hungrily, the way addicts do when they see someone else taking their share – possibly more than their share – of the stash.
It was only when White Boy looked up that he saw Carver coming towards him. He took the pipe out of his mouth and gave a wordless grunt that alerted his mates to the presence of a passer-by.
They turned their feverish, sunken eyes in Carver’s direction.
He knew perfectly well how he must look: a little over average height, but with a lean build that was unlikely to intimidate anyone. He wasn’t the kind of man who stood out in a crowd or attracted attention by virtue of his size. In his line of work, anonymity had always been a necessity. He’d never wanted people to know just how dangerous he could be.
Of course, this had the drawback that people didn’t actually know how dangerous he could be. People like dumb, brain-fried crackheads who were always looking for easy money and who, right now, were pulling out knives, getting down off the wall and closing the few metres between themselves and Carver with scuffling, unsteady steps.
They were drunk and stoned, so their reactions would be treacle-slow and their motor skills shot to pieces. On the other hand, they would also be irrational, incoherent and lacking in any sort of impulse control. Carver really didn’t want or need a fight tonight, but negotiation wasn’t an option.
‘You stay ’ere, don’ fuckin’ move!’ White Boy shouted, stabbing his knife in the air. He still had the crack pipe in his other hand. He wasn’t going to let that out of his sight.
The other two spread out to either side of him, blocking Carver’s lines of escape. But they didn’t make any further move to attack him, so he just stayed where he was, waiting to see how this would all unfold.
To his surprise, White Boy had actually broken into a feeble imitation of a run and was heading across the open space. Carver watched him scramble across the broken, debris-strewn ground and it was only then that he realized that there were more people, maybe as many as a hundred, gathered around another set of fires that had been lit on the far side of the space. And by the looks of them, they weren’t there to toast marshmallows.
White Boy disappeared into the crowd, only to re-emerge a few seconds later with another man in a black leather jacket and a beanie hat. This one was a very different specimen. He was squat and barrel-chested with the concentrated raw strength, broken nose and cauliflower ears of a rugby front-row forward. He walked straight up to Carver and asked him, ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing here?’
‘What does it look like?’ Carver replied. ‘I’m walking.’
‘Well, fuck off and walk somewhere else, then.’
‘Get out of my way, and I will. All I want to do is go through this estate and out the other side so that I can have a nice, quiet drink with an old friend.’
‘I wouldn’t do that if I was you.’
‘Thanks for the advice, but I think I will anyway.’
The big man in the beanie hat knew a lot about intimidating people, and he couldn’t help but notice that Carver wasn’t in the least bit frightened. He was also sober and streetwise enough to have picked up on the calm, methodical way that Carver had been assessing the situation around him as they’d been talking. He could not have known just how precisely Carver had worked out the sequence with which he would disable the big man, take White Boy’s knife, place it against the big man’s throat and inform him that it was going to get cut to the bone if he didn’t tell everyone else to back up and let Carver through. But still, the big man got the clear impression that there was a risk attached to starting a fight with this apparently innocuous new arrival, so he took a step back, swept his arm like a traffic cop letting the traffic through and said, ‘Suit yourself.’
‘Thanks,’ said Carver, ‘I will.’
And he walked
It was only when White Boy looked up that he saw Carver coming towards him. He took the pipe out of his mouth and gave a wordless grunt that alerted his mates to the presence of a passer-by.
They turned their feverish, sunken eyes in Carver’s direction.
He knew perfectly well how he must look: a little over average height, but with a lean build that was unlikely to intimidate anyone. He wasn’t the kind of man who stood out in a crowd or attracted attention by virtue of his size. In his line of work, anonymity had always been a necessity. He’d never wanted people to know just how dangerous he could be.
Of course, this had the drawback that people didn’t actually know how dangerous he could be. People like dumb, brain-fried crackheads who were always looking for easy money and who, right now, were pulling out knives, getting down off the wall and closing the few metres between themselves and Carver with scuffling, unsteady steps.
They were drunk and stoned, so their reactions would be treacle-slow and their motor skills shot to pieces. On the other hand, they would also be irrational, incoherent and lacking in any sort of impulse control. Carver really didn’t want or need a fight tonight, but negotiation wasn’t an option.
‘You stay ’ere, don’ fuckin’ move!’ White Boy shouted, stabbing his knife in the air. He still had the crack pipe in his other hand. He wasn’t going to let that out of his sight.
The other two spread out to either side of him, blocking Carver’s lines of escape. But they didn’t make any further move to attack him, so he just stayed where he was, waiting to see how this would all unfold.
To his surprise, White Boy had actually broken into a feeble imitation of a run and was heading across the open space. Carver watched him scramble across the broken, debris-strewn ground and it was only then that he realized that there were more people, maybe as many as a hundred, gathered around another set of fires that had been lit on the far side of the space. And by the looks of them, they weren’t there to toast marshmallows.
White Boy disappeared into the crowd, only to re-emerge a few seconds later with another man in a black leather jacket and a beanie hat. This one was a very different specimen. He was squat and barrel-chested with the concentrated raw strength, broken nose and cauliflower ears of a rugby front-row forward. He walked straight up to Carver and asked him, ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing here?’
‘What does it look like?’ Carver replied. ‘I’m walking.’
‘Well, fuck off and walk somewhere else, then.’
‘Get out of my way, and I will. All I want to do is go through this estate and out the other side so that I can have a nice, quiet drink with an old friend.’
‘I wouldn’t do that if I was you.’
‘Thanks for the advice, but I think I will anyway.’
The big man in the beanie hat knew a lot about intimidating people, and he couldn’t help but notice that Carver wasn’t in the least bit frightened. He was also sober and streetwise enough to have picked up on the calm, methodical way that Carver had been assessing the situation around him as they’d been talking. He could not have known just how precisely Carver had worked out the sequence with which he would disable the big man, take White Boy’s knife, place it against the big man’s throat and inform him that it was going to get cut to the bone if he didn’t tell everyone else to back up and let Carver through. But still, the big man got the clear impression that there was a risk attached to starting a fight with this apparently innocuous new arrival, so he took a step back, swept his arm like a traffic cop letting the traffic through and said, ‘Suit yourself.’
‘Thanks,’ said Carver, ‘I will.’
And he walked
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