Dodger (28 page)

‘Eddie get grabbed?'

‘Some years back,' said Georgie. ‘At Cremorne Gardens for pinching a wallet what had just dropped out of cove's pocket.'

‘Only this cove was a peeler,' Jem continued for him. ‘On his day off, if you can believe that, and he grabbed Eddie in seconds.'

‘It was a trap, from the sound of things,' sighed Mouse. ‘These peelers never play fair.'

‘Is Eddie still in prison?'

‘Nah,' said Jem. ‘He was only put away for about six months. Nothing really. But prison done something to him and he was never the same Steady Eddie.'

‘I saw him in a gin-house the week after his release,' Georgie told me. ‘Grey skin, underfed. He had this massive bruise on his eye from a fight the night before.'

‘Ben Sikes done that,' Mouse told him. ‘He'd been getting comfortable in Sally Quick's bed while Eddie had been away, and there was this confrontation. Eddie started it; Ben finished it.'

‘His hands was always trembling from then on,' said Jem, mimicking the shakes as he lifted his gin glass. ‘Useless to us.'

‘He got took up again for an attempt on a lady's purse, only this time it was no trap,' said Georgie. ‘He had just lost the touch. He spent two years in Tothill Fields Prison and when he got out
he no longer had the nerve for the more daring work. I hear he's a sorry thief now, stealing from old boats on the riverside, rolling over drunks, that sort of shamefulness. Most of his money goes to the Chinamen these days. You can find him at Wu's I should imagine, losing himself in the smoke.'

‘And for this reason you all want nothing to do with him?' I asked in surprise. ‘Just because he's an opium fiend?'

‘He's still a pal.' Mouse shook his head. ‘We just can't work with him no more.'

‘It weren't him we was cursing,' Jem growled, and then sunk another glass. ‘We was cursing the other one?
Your best pal!
'

‘Charley?' I replied, taken aback.

‘Yeah, Bates!' Jem said, and burped. ‘The splitter!'

‘Charley wouldn't split on anyone, Jem,' I said, and looked to the others for reassurance. ‘He was staunch.'

‘It's true, Dodge,' said Mouse in a softer manner. ‘Charley told the peelers where Bill was hiding after Nancy's murder. Leaned out of a window and shouted his name to a whole mob what was hunting for him. That's why he ain't around no more. The Sikes gang'd settle accounts if he was to show his face.'

‘Not just them,' Jem said, getting to his feet to address the room on unsteady legs. ‘I won't have splitters in my gang neither. We'd settle him too if we got hold of him, eh, boys?'

The other two was half-hearted in their agreement but Jem did not seem to notice. He just stood there for some minutes and talked us through the many violent acts he would inflict upon Charley Bates should they ever meet again.

I was most intrigued by the news of Charley's flight, and not just out of disappointment at him being a white-livered splitter. I also suspected there might be another reason for his wanting to vanish from London just as things was getting nasty. A young
robber doesn't head off on his own with nothing, I knew that. He takes the means to start a new life. And where would Charley Bates, prosperous thief though he was, get that sort of capital? Perhaps he had in his possession something very valuable. Something priceless.

‘Fagin was wrong about that one,' declared Jem with bitterness. ‘He used to be one of the old man's favourites. And he betrayed us.'

‘Is that what you think, Jem?' I asked with too much interest. ‘That Fagin thought of Charley as a favourite?' Jem misunderstood my question and turned nasty on me.

‘Oh, don't you fret on it, Dodger,' he swayed over, curling his lip. ‘You was always the
Top-Sawyer
!' He started mimicking the old Jew in a way I did not find humorous. But then impersonations never was Jem's gift. ‘“
Be more like the Artful, my dear
,”' he said in a voice that sounded nothing like the man. ‘“
The Artful this… the Artful that
 …” Pah! It was like you was his own Jew son.'

At this moment Barney came back into the room with the gin bottle I'd asked for. He had heard Jem getting louder from the main tavern and was keen to stop any trouble brewing. ‘What's all this then, eh?' he said in a friendly manner. ‘Ain't we all good pals still?'

‘Gerroutofit, you rotten Hebrew,' Jem barked at him. ‘You're another one I can't abide.' The honest Barney flinched at these words as if he had been spat at. Both myself and Mouse was outraged by this verbal attack upon the good landlord and we said so.

‘Don't go breathing your fire on him, Jem,' I told him straight. ‘Barney's safe, safer than most. Just because Fagin never rated you as a thief don't mean you can speak to his friends however you care to.'

‘Ignore 'im, Barn,' Mouse said. ‘He lost some money on a dog, that's all.' Barney handed me the gin bottle and said that it was on him.

‘But maybe drink it on the way home, eh, Dodge?' he suggested. ‘And take your pal there with you. Bedtime for Barney.' The music from the bar had stopped by now and he begun snuffing out candles around the taproom. I took the bottle and stuffed it in my coat pocket what was hung on the rack. ‘You can leave Georgie here,' said Barney, noticing that he had passed out underneath the table again. ‘I'll get him a blanket and lay him out nice and comfortable.'

‘Aah!' Jem groaned as he went to get up and shook his head in regret. ‘You know I loves ya, Barn,' he said to the fine old man in a humbler tone. ‘It's just the Dodger. 'E vexes me so with all his talk of being Fagin's favourite, reminding us all the time. Fagin never called
me
his favourite,' he said, his voice all self-pity. I tapped the last of the tobacco from my pipe out into a tin, coughed and told him that I could well believe that. Jem turned on me again, his voice raised and angry.

‘I'm top-sawyer now, Dodger, not you. Maybe you was, once along ago, but not no more, y'hear. Not no more.' He punched his chest and stood like he was a savage warning off foreign settlers from his own land. ‘Don't like it? Well, go back to the colonies and take the black boy with you. This ain't your city no more. You can cut away just like Bates did!'

‘Oi oi oi.' A voice from the floor. It was Georgie, lifting up his face with a look of agony. ‘What's this row about, Jem?' he asked, rubbing his head. ‘Jack ain't like Charley. He'd never get scared and run off at the first sign of trouble.'

‘You reckon, do you?' Jem said. He turned to me. ‘Why d'you want to see Bates anyway?' he asked. ‘So you and him can boast
about how clever you both is? Chuckling together, like you always did, always about me.' He prodded my chest. ‘Well, the Jew was wrong, weren't he? None of you was worth half of what I am – the blind old fool just couldn't see it.' He was getting right in my face now, daring me to fight him, using his gin breath as his first weapon. ‘All the ones he loved turned bad, didn't they? All three. Your pal Bates …' He leaned in close and I backed away, which I knew was a mistake as soon as I did it. I couldn't have Mouse and Georgie see me cowering, not if I was to be their top-sawyer again. ‘Always the giggling fool – in the end he was no more than a rat and a coward.' I stood still as he gave me all his front. I let him perform for a bit, knowing he would run out of steam. ‘You …' he went on, in love with his own slurred voice, ‘… arrested for something as trifling as a silver snuffbox. Paffetic!' It would not take much to drop him, I knew. His feet was unsteady as he stepped forward; I was by far the more sober. ‘No wonder Ruby went off ya! I've seen the way you looks at her. But a woman like that don't want those what are all mouth. She wants a man like me, what—'

Unfortunately Jem did not get to finish extolling his own virtues as Ruby's preferred lover. He was instead most rudely interrupted by my fist smashing up into his face. The surprise of it caused him to stagger backwards and crash straight down on to the table, scattering the gin glasses and the tobacco tin. He rolled over and on to the floorboards and the others all called out in surprise. Georgie rushed over to help him up and Barney ran about to see how many of his glasses had been smashed. ‘My eyes, Jack,' said Mouse as I rubbed my knuckles, what had only just been starting to heal from their fight with Warrigal, ‘you've gone and lain him out flat.'

I stepped over to see if this was so and as got close Jem sprang
up again and came at me, landing a powerful blow to my chin. I fell backwards and landed hard but Mouse and Georgie was up and pulling Jem away from serving me more.

‘Rah!' Jem struggled and he swore loud that he would kill me. But the boy was so stricken from the drink that his limbs would not let him stand his ground and Georgie had to put Jem's arm over his shoulder just to help him to a chair.

‘We've been at the spirits,' he said. ‘Time to call it a night.'

‘You!' Jem pointed at me again, his throat rebelling against more than one word. ‘Dawkins!' he managed. ‘You is …' And then he puked all over his own lap.

We all of us cried out in disgust at this and Barney announced that the fun was over and that we was all to make our way home. Nobody wanted to argue. That small, airless room had long since lost its allure even before this had happened and we gathered our things to leave. Georgie and Mouse, after having helped wash the mess from off Jem's clothes, took an arm each and hoisted him out of the door, apologising to Barney as they left. Barney had fetched a bucket and mop out of a nearby cupboard and, when I collected my hat from off the peg, he called my name before I left.

‘Jack,' he whispered, keen that the others would not hear, ‘I meant what I said, y'know.'

‘About what?'

‘About Fagin being proud of you. For getting back here and looking as fine as you do. You really was one of his favourites.'

As he said this a memory returned to me of the previous night in Greenwich. It was of me sawing open that little Indian prince and finding it hid only a pebble inside, nothing more.

‘So they tell me,' I said. And with that I bid Barney goodnight, tossed him a gold sovereign and left him alone to wipe up the sick.

The Dollman lived just where I remembered from my childhood, in a slanting one-bedroom crib what overhung a tilting secondhand toyshop in deepest Clerkenwell. It was just after sunrise on a sleepy Sunday when I arrived there and the street was cold and deserted save for a watching cat and a vagrant asleep in the doorway of the shop. Not caring if I woke him I used my cane to rap down heavy upon the weathered door with its peeling pink paint. No answer. Undeterred, I walked through an alley until I was at the rear of the shop, climbed through a hole in a fence and was soon in a weed-covered backyard throwing pebbles up to the tiny window above. A man's head appeared at the glass, greyer and balder than I had expected, but it was a head what I recognised. He did not recognise me however and I heard his muffled shout, asking me what in fiery blazes I thought I was playing at.

‘Dicky!' I called up, smiling and waving to show him that I had come in friendship. ‘It's me, Jack Dawkins!' I could see the face turn quizzical and I told him to open the smeary window so we could talk proper. This he did and I repeated my name.

‘Yeah?' he asked, adjusting his spectacles. ‘And who's Jack Dawkins when he's at home?'

‘The Artful Dodger,' I said. ‘You must remember me. One of
Fagin's boys. I was in here all the time with the old man.' I saw recognition dawn at last upon Dick's face and it brightened as he asked me what I was messing up his garden for so early in the morning. This I found to be most droll as the untidy stone-yard had one or two bulbs growing in cracked clay pots but to describe it as a garden really was to put on airs. ‘I want to talk to you, Dicky,' I said. ‘About this doll.' I reached into my pocket and produced the two halves of the wooden prince. ‘Let me in, it's important.' Dick nodded, told me to meet him around the front and he shut his window.

There was two reasons for why I wanted to rise from my bed in Bethnal Green so early and travel over to this small, curious address before the rest of the city had woken.

The first was on account of how this Dick, not only a manufacturer of cheap toys but also a man not averse to buying goods burgled from middle-class nurseries, had been a business associate of Fagin's and I was hoping he could shed light on a few things. The second reason, and this one accounted for the unsociable hour, was that I had no wish to be asleep in that house when Jem finally awoke.

He, Georgie, Mouse and myself had all made it back to his crib in Bethnal Green after our night out in the Cripples just hours ago and, although my head was stinging hard from too much gin, I did not want to lie there unprotected for long. The last time I had lain too long asleep in that house I had woken to discover a harlot plying her trade above me, but I fretted that on this occasion a more violent act would be my alarm. Because of how insensible the drink had made him, I had suffered no reprisals from Jem for punching him the night before. Instead, he just unlocked the front door and staggered, still smelling of puke, into the room he shared with Ruby and slammed the bedroom door shut after he
pulled his shirt off and threw it on the floor. Mouse curled up to sleep on some cushions he found by the fireside, in a manner what suggested he was accustomed to sleeping there. Georgie meanwhile said that I could share with him the hard, one-pillowed bed that was in another room what only he had the key for, a room he used whenever he stayed over the night before a big burglary. So my night had been restless and unsatisfactory and this, coupled with my eagerness to distance myself from Jem, was why I felt that an early-morning social visit would be a very good idea.