
paving, a second skin of grime which Was the accrual of many months. Had it
not been for the fragrance of alcohol off him, which obscured the worst of his
bodily stench, it would have been nigh on impossible to stand within a yard of
him. The man was human refuse, a shame to his species.
"Why bother with him?" Karney said. "He stinks."
Red glanced over his shoulder to silence the interruption. At seventeen,
Karney was the youngest, and in the quartet's unspoken hierarchy scarcely
deserving of an opinion. Recognizing his error, he shut up, leaving Red to
return his attention to the vagrant. He pushed Pope back against the wall of
the tunnel. The old man expelled a cry as he struck the concrete; it echoed
back and forth. Karney, knowing from past experience how the scene would go
from here, moved away and studied a gilded cloud of gnats on the edge of the
tunnel. Though he enjoyed being with Red and the other two-the camaraderie,
the petty larceny, the drinking-this particular game had never been much to
his taste. He couldn't see the sport in finding some drunken wreck of a man
like Pope and beating what little sense was left in his deranged head out of
him. It made Karney feel dirty, and he wanted no part of it.
Red pulled Pope off the wall and spat a stream of abuse into the man's face,
then, when he failed to get an adequate response, threw him back against the
tunnel a second time, more forcibly than the first, following through by
taking the breathless man by both lapels and shaking him until he rattled.
Pope threw a panicky glance up and down the track. A railway had once run
along this route through Highgate and Finsbury Park. The track was long gone,
however, and the site was public parkland, popular with early morning joggers
and late-evening lovers Now, in the middle of a clammy afternoon, the track
was deserted in both directions.
"Hey," said Catso, "don't break his bottles."
"Right," said Brendan, "we should dig out the drink before we break his head."
At the mention of being robbed of his liquor Pope began
to struggle, but his thrashing only served to enrage his captor. Red was in a
dirty mood. The day, like most days this Indian summer, had been sticky and
dull. Only the dog-end of a wasted season to endure; nothing to do, and no
money to spend. Some entertainment had been called for, and it had fallen to
Red as lion, and Pope as Christian, to supply it.
"You'll get hurt if you struggle," Red advised the man, "we only want to see
what you've got in your pockets."
"None of your business," Pope retorted, and for a moment he spoke as a man who
had once been used to being obeyed. The outburst made Karney turn from the
gnats and gaze at Pope's emaciated face. Nameless degeneracies had drained it
of dignity or vigor, but something remained there, glimmering beneath the
dirt. What had the man been, Karney wondered? A banker perhaps? A judge, now
lost to the law forever?
Catso had now stepped into the fray to search Pope's clothes, while Red held
his prisoner against the tunnel wall by the throat. Pope fought off Catso's
unwelcome attentions as best he could, his arms flailing like windmills, his
eyes getting progressively wilder. Don't fight, Karney willed him, it'll be
worse for you if you do. But the old man seemed to be on the verge of panic.
He was letting out small grunts of protest that were more animal than human.
"Somebody hold his arms," Catso said, ducking beneath Pope's attack. Brendan
grabbed hold of Pope's wrists and wrenched the man's arms up above his head to
facilitate an easier search. Even now, with any hope of release dashed, Pope
continued to squirm. He managed to land a solid kick to Red's left shin, for
which he received a blow in return. Blood broke from his nose and ran down
into his mouth. There was more color where that came from, Karney knew. He'd
seen pictures aplenty of spilled people-bright, gleaming coils of guts; yellow
fat and purple lungs-all that brilliance was locked up in the gray sack of
Pope's body. Why such a thought should occur to him Karney wasn't certain. It
distressed him, and he tried to turn his attention back to the gnats, but Pope
demanded his attention, loosing a cry of anguish as Catso ripped open one of
his several waistcoats to get to the lower layers.