by Gerald Kersh
Fabian felt as a man must feel who is caught in a quicksand and, having screamed his voice away to a whisper, feels the mud closing about his neck and straining desperately upwards sees nothing but the night. On the one hand there was Three-Fingers; when he and the Australian learned that he had betrayed them to Leo, their anger would be terrible. On the other hand there was Leo, and he was the most dangerous man in England to cross. Three-Fingers was murderous in his rage; violent, cruel and reckless. A trickle of sweat that felt like ice-water ran down Fabian’s spine as he remembered a gruesome night when Three-Fingers, with horrifying deliberation, poured the contents of a boiling coffee-urn over the head and shoulders of an enemy in the Greek Dive. The Australian, too, was resolute and vindictive; and hideously strong. Fabian could almost feel the steel tip of the Australian’s boot heel on his teeth. They would not kill him, no—they would make him wish that they had killed him, before they were done with him. Yet Leo was more terrifying than all the rest put together. He never raised a finger. He never lost his temper. He smiled quietly, said “All right”—if that—and went home to his motherly little wife and three growing daughters in Hampstead, where he lived in a pleasant old house near the Heath. But somehow, somewhere between here and there a word was spoken through those torn-up ventriloquist’s lips, and someone else went to work. Leo was known to the police as a sort of Jonathan Wild—a great organiser of robberies and receiver of stolen goods: they knew that he had arranged the Great Bullion Robbery, and a dozen other brilliantly conceived and perfectly executed crimes, including four murders. They had known Leo for twenty years, and he had never been convicted. He had never even been accused. His was the wisdom, the cunning, the strength and the intuition of a King Rat, that senses traps, and lets smaller rats taste the poison put down for it. Leo’s whisper between Oxford Circus and Regent Street sent diamond cutters in Antwerp scuttling underground and made mysterious commotion among fur dealers in Hamburg and silk merchants in Paris. The devil knew the geography of his underground runs. He had a bright-eyed, sharp-toothed agent behind every wall and under every floor. And he was a man of principle, too, fastidious as the book-keeper of a bank in the matter of a penny gone astray—he would spend a pound to trace it and put it in its proper place, which was in his pocket.
Leo was at large, and always would be at large; whereas Three-Fingers and the others were locked behind iron doors for a year or so.
Harry Fabian said: “Hell, Leo, I wouldn’t double-cross you or anyone else, not even my worst enemy. But—hell, well, you know how it was. Three-Fingers was the boss. I was taking orders from Three-Fingers. And Jesus, Leo, I’m no double-crosser….”
“Where did he leave that money?” asked Leo, letting the cat fall and looking at his watch. “I’ve got two minutes. This is your last chance, little feller. Hurry up. I want that money, little feller.”
Fabian swallowed saliva and said: “Okay. Three-Fingers left the dough with Little Ziggy.”
“What for?”
“Well, there were seventy tenners, twenty fivers, and a fifty; eight hundred and fifty quid in all, all in big notes. The idea was, that there was a note of their numbers—see? So Ziggy was going to give us sixty per cent of the money. Only as you know, Leo, there wasn’t time.”
What would you do with such people? said Leo to himself. Can’t they read? Didn’t they see in the papers that the man never mentioned any eight hundred and fifty pounds? Didn’t anybody ever tell them that two and two make four? God save us from fools! Didn’t they stop to think that there’s no easy way of tracing the serial numbers of money a bookie takes on the course? Didn’t they stop to think that he’s got a partner, and that he was holding out—just the same as they were? That’s why the money was in his private safe on Sunday; and that’s why the other stuff was mentioned in the papers, but not that money. Oh no, the silly little men—they want to be clever. They think the Yard kept it out of the papers to put them off their guard until one of them, the mugs, tried to crack a big note. He said aloud: “Ziggy. That’s all I wanted to know, sonny boy.”
“What about my hundred and fifty, Leo?”
They had reached Wardour Street. Leo said: “You know, little feller, I made a mistake about you. There was a time, not very long ago, when I thought you were all right. But there you are, you see. Truth will out, little man. They knocked all the fight out of you when you went on that little holiday. You’re no good, Harry. You’re no good to me. Here you are—catch hold of this,” said Leo, giving Fabian some money, “put it in you pocket. It’s all you’re going to get. And if you take my advice, you’ll stay out of Soho.”
Leo walked on. Fabian looked at the money in his wet hand and saw that Leo had given him crumpled and soiled notes to the value often pounds ten shillings.
“And some people say there’s a God!” he said.
*
Enraged, humiliated, damp with fright and palpitating with resentment, he went to a News Theatre, to calm his nerves, clarify his mind and get away from his troubles with the help of Donald Duck. Instinctively he made his way to a seat next to a young woman. Donald Duck, that most unfortunate of birds, was caught in a washing-machine, which filled its mouth with bubbles and covered its backside with suds. The duck went under with a bubbling quack, came up again with a Santa Claus beard of froth and a venerable wig of foam; was dragged down on steel hooks, rinsed thoroughly, and hurled into a wringer from which it emerged flat as a pancake; whereupon a metal hand pegged it on a clothes line. Donald Duck wept. Fabian took advantage of the universal laughter to kick the young lady on the ankle and say: “My old pal Walt! My pal Walt! What a boy, what a boy!”
The young woman turned her head very slowly and said: “I beg your pardon!”
Harry Fabian said: “I beg your pardon, Miss. Did I kick you? Hell—well, look, I’ll kick myself, and that makes us even Steven.” He kicked himself and pretended to writhe in pain. The young woman, who had appeared to be properly haughty and self-contained, could not hold back her laughter. She snorted, choked, and then giggled. Fabian put a reassuring hand on her thigh, pressed his right shoulder to her left, and said, in a confidential whisper: “No, but honest to God. You see the way that duck moves? That’s what they call animation. I was Walt’s animator up to the time colour came in. Ever hear of a man called Ub Iwerks? The man who invented Flip the Frog? He worked with Disney too. I walked in when Ub walked out. And there’s no use talking, that boy’s got something. What do you think?”
The young woman said: “Perhaps. I don’t know.”
Fabian slid his hand down to her knee and felt her leg under her skirt. She said, whispering into his right ear: “Let us go away from here.”
“Where to?” whispered Fabian.
“Anywhere, anywhere away from here.”
“To hell with that,” said Fabian, investigating her bosom with an experienced hand. He felt her heart beating. She felt very young in the dark. “Where do you live?” he asked.
“Nowhere,” said the young woman.
Donald Duck disappeared, honking disconsolately, hung up by the tail. Something told Harry Fabian that God was with him again. “Okay,” he said, “come to my place.”
She said, imperiously: “Wait. I want to see Mickey Mouse.”
“You can see anything you like,” said Fabian, tickling her backbone with an urgent little hand. “You can see anything, any place, any time. Get me?”
Pushing his other hand away, she said: “Not here. Not now. Patience.”
“Okey the Doke,” said Fabian. “Hokey-da-dokey.”
She giggled.
“Dokey-the-hokey. Hokey-the-poke,” said Fabian. “Pokey-the-wokey. Wokey-the-oke.” He blew into the young woman’s ear and, as she wriggled and laughed, tickled her abdomen. “Let’s get way out of here—let’s get (to be crude) the hell out of here,” he said. “Come to my place. I could tell you in one word what I like about you.”
“What?”
“Personality. What�
�s your name?”
“Catussher.”
“How d’you spell it?”
“K-A-T-U-S-H-A.”
“Unusual name, that.”
“It’s Russian. What’s yours?”
“Harry. Ooky-da-wook!”
“No, don’t be silly—Ooky-da-wook!”
“Ssh—don’t laugh so loud, Pritt. People want to listen to the news.”
“What sort of talk is Pritt?”
“Short for ‘Pretty’—get it? That’s what they all say on the Coast right now. Okey-the-soakey?”
Mickey Mouse faded out sheepishly, half-drowned in a prodigious cream cake with which Minnie Mouse had beaten him over the head. Fabian took advantage of the introductory music to a travel film, and let Katusha into the lobby, where he looked at her with an experienced eye and said: “Jesus, it seems funny, somehow, to look at this stuff here in this town. It sort of gets you kind of ashamed. Could you have any respect for me if I told you I animated that duck? Hell, if I knew then what I know now—God Almighty, that duck would jump out of the screen and lay an egg on your lap. Sometimes, Katusha, I think I was a mug to quarrel with Disney, and then again, on the other hand, some people say that Walt was a mug to quarrel with me. The trouble with us was, we were just a couple of geniuses, and geniuses never get on together. I grant you, Katusha, that I couldn’t of drawn Donald Duck in six months; whereas Walt could draw you anything—ducks, mice, bloodhounds and even squirrels. But where, I ask you, would your Silly Symphony be if I hadn’t animated it? You know what I mean—brought it to life. Oh, I know you’re laughing at me deep down inside. And mind you, it does seem like a god-damn silly job for a grown man to do—making Donald Duck move like a duck. But believe me or believe me not, Katusha, you sort of get to be kind of proud of a job that sort of gets to be kind of world-wide. Go on. Laugh at me and have done with it. Laugh, go on.”
“Well,” said Katusha, “I should think you could do better if you tried.”
“Well, hell, that’s what I’m here for, isn’t it? Between ourselves, Kat, I’ve come over here to put British sound cartoons on the map. Hell, you know as well as I do that an animator—I mean a real animator—is like finding a pearl in a oyster. You know what? All the same, you get sort of homesick—and shall I tell you something? Walking past that place I sort of couldn’t resist the kind of urge to go in and look at some of my old stuff. Jesus, you don’t know what a relief it is to me to talk to an intelligent girl like you. Tell me all about yourself, Kat. From now on I’m going to call you Kat.”
In the taxi she said: “My father was a beast and a bully. My poor mother died when I was a little baby. I couldn’t stand it any longer, so I went out to service. Well, then I met a gentleman. He was the lady of the house’s nephew. He was in the Army. I can’t tell you their name: he’s a titled man. He was engaged to a titled lady. I was only a servant girl and he was the son of an Earl. I knew it couldn’t come to anything, but I couldn’t help falling in love with him, could I?”
“You couldn’t. No more than I could help falling in love with you,” said Harry Fabian.
“Don’t be silly, you won’t fall in love with me.”
“Don’t be too sure about that.”
“Well, as it happens, he fell in love with me—see? And I gave myself to him. Well, he was called back to his regiment, and … well … there I was. You don’t know what it feels like, when you feel the baby under your heart, and look up and pray to the Virgin, and you know all the time nothing’s going to happen. I felt the baby under my heart. So this officer’s aunt, she gave me some money and she told me to go away. So I went away, but I wouldn’t take the money.”
“That’s right,” said Fabian.
“Well, you see, the baby was born dead, because of what I’d been through. D’you know what? I ran after the train for miles and miles, and it was snowing—would you believe it? He was in a first-class carriage with two other officers and three women, and they were drinking champagne. He never saw me.”
“Who did you go to, to get rid of the kid?” asked Fabian.
“It was born dead. It was his son. He went abroad with his regiment. After that I didn’t care what happened to me. I didn’t care about anything. Do you know what I did?”
“No, what did you do?” asked Fabian, deeply moved.
“I became a prostitute. And if you want to know, that’s what I am now—a common prostitute.”
“No, is that so?” said Fabian.
“What else was I to do?” she said, clasping her hands, and looking upward.
“You poor kid. You know what? I’m funny that way. I can’t bear to see a fellow creature suffering. If anybody does me a bad turn, or tries to push me around, that’s different—I’d knock his god-damn block off if it was the last thing I ever did, if he was Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney rolled into one. If he tried to do me dirt, or if he didn’t show me the proper respect I’m accustomed to, I’d smack that guy right in the kisser wherever he was—even if I was in Buckingham Palace at the time. I used to be fly-weight champion of Carolina when I was a kid; but it’s a mug’s game: the managers grab the big end, and what have you got? I don’t take the sucker’s end of any racket. But as I was saying, I can’t bear to see women and children suffering. Did you say you were all alone in London? No father? No mother?”
“My mother died of a broken ’eart,” said Katusha. “She was a lady. She was the iggilitimate daughter of an earl, but she fell in love with my father although ’e was only a poor Army officer in the cavalry and eloped with ’im because ’e fascinated ’er, but ’e was a bully and a beast, and ’e took to drink, and lost all the regiment’s money playing cards, and killed ’imself—’e shot ’imself through the ’ead with a pistol; and so I went to work in a factory, but the son of the feller what owned the factory fell in love with me and wanted to possess me, but I wouldn’t let ’im, and so I went into service and got seduced. I’m just an outcast, reely.”
“How long have you been on the game? Where d’you lumber?”
“Lumber?”
“Lumber. Where d’you take your clients?”
“I ’aven’t got a room of my own yet.”
“Oh, you haven’t, haven’t you? And how old did you say you were?”
“Twenty-one.”
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! sang the rejoicing heart of Harry Fabian. “What d’you charge?”
“You want someone to look after you,” said Fabian.
“I’m all alone in the world.”
“Oh no you’re not. Don’t you believe that for one minute. I’m your pal, see? I’ll look after you. See? I’m like that: I don’t mind spending fifty-sixty pounds in an evening on champagne and orchids, when I relax; but Jesus, I hate inefficiency! That’s the god-damn trouble with the god-damn world to-day—inefficiency. Now what you want is some snappy clothes and some high-class hairdressing, and a fur coat. How would ya like that?” One glance at her face told Fabian how she would like that. He went on: “Yes, god-damn it, a fur coat, that’s what you need. Tell me, kid, what kind of fur d’you like best?”
“Ermine.”
“Okay, ermine it is. What colour?”
“Snowy ermine.”
“Oke!” said Fabian, in a brisk, business-like voice. “White ermine. Okey-the-doke. Full length? Three-quarter? Or one of those wraps? Say the word.”
“I dunno,” she said. She did not want to say too much in case she spoiled the dream and awoke in the stuffy darkness of the sixpenny news cinema.
“I should say three-quarter length,” said Fabian. “I know a bit about furs. Remind me to tell you, one of these days, about the time me and a man called Wolfe Larsen went seal hunting way up in … whatsaname. I owned a schooner then: Jesus, those were the days, when I was a kid of your age. Adventure! Excitement! Christ, the fights we used to have! I can tell you, kid, I never regretted being the flyweight champ of … of Carolina. Dokey-da-hoke: three-quarter length ermine. I’ll make a note
of it. Any jewellery you want you’d better pick out for yourself. Because what I say is this: one person’s taste isn’t another person’s taste. But for colouring I’d say star sapphires. Diamonds are always okay, of course, but Jesus—every rich bitch in town wears diamonds, and to tell you the truth, honey, I kind of get fed up with diamonds. They’re sort of common. Star sapphires. What say?”
“Yes, star sapphires.”
“Oke. Sapphires … star. Don’t worry, I got it all fixed in my mind. Don’t you worry, kid. I’ll take care of you. Jesus, it makes my blood boil—a well-bred, ladylike kid like you lousing about with all them sixpence-and-find-your-own-railings mob of layabouts in Tottenham Court Road, when it sticks out like a punch in the mouth that you were born and bred for better things. Do you believe me?”
“Yes.”
“Stick by me and I’ll put a gold spoon right in your kisser. Ah! Here we are!”
Fabian felt like Saul, who lost a donkey and found a kingdom, or Gow, who dug for water and found a gold mine. While he was opening the street door he said: “I live pretty quiet here. I don’t entertain much these days. I got a hell of a lot to think about. I like to be quiet. To hell with the Savoy—I don’t give a twopenny god-damn for all that whirl of gaiety. You sort of get sick of it, kid—you’ll see. Stick around with me. Well, here we are.” He opened the door of Number 802 Wardour Street. “Besides,” he said, “it’s convenient here for business. No luxury—just clean and simple. Good enough for me. Come on in.”
Harry Fabian’s room was on the ground floor. Poking absent-minded fingers into holes in the pockets of cast-off years, most men find cracked and greasy pictures of such rooms; and then they remember certain sordid afternoons and sticky twilights when, having done up the last button and cast the last worried glance at the clock, they hurried away to Leicester Square Station, hoping that their necks were not marked with lipstick. They remember how the woman was lying, puffing cigarette-smoke toward the ceiling, with thirty pocket-warmed shillings cooling under her pillow, while soapy water rocked itself to sleep in the bucket under the sink behind the screen. They will not forget the stained pink cushions on the shot-rayon divan; the wide-eyed, loose-legged doll perched up on the topmost cushion; the blunt oblong cake of olive-green soap by the tap that was marked Hot but ran cold; the terrified scouring, frantic lying, and furtively-pinching self-examination. Whenever they smell rotten flowers, musty bedding, neglected laundry-baskets, hot feet, stale breath, sixpenny face-powder, gin and lysol, they remember the fading light behind the vieux-rose curtains and the bilious bulb under the fly-blown pleated lampshade; and they fold their Sunday newspapers a little tighter and cry: “No, this is a bit too thick!”