The World in My Pocket

‘So you’re through with getting your brains bashed into a pulp,’ Morgan had said when Kitson was flat on his back on his bed in the sordid little room he called his home. ‘So what? You and me could work together, kid. I’ve seen the way you can handle a car. I’m getting together a small mob: boys who can do a job sweetly and quickly and make themselves some money. What do you say?’

At twenty-three, Kitson realized he had reached the bottom of his ladder of ambition. He had hoped to become the Heavyweight Champion of the World, but this beating told him, as nothing else could, that this was now a pipe dream and he was just one more fighter in the trash bin. He had twenty dollars in his pocket, no friends and his future looked bleak. Even at that he hesitated. He knew Morgan by reputation. He knew Morgan had served fifteen years in jail, that he was violent and dangerous. He knew that he was asking for trouble if he joined Morgan’s mob, but he was more scared of being left on his own, to try to make a future for himself than of being hooked up with Morgan, so he had thrown in with him.

The five jobs he had done with Morgan’s mob had earned him enough money to live fairly well. They were jobs without much risk: small and carefully planned, and he knew, if he had been caught, he would have had to serve only three to six months in jail as a first offender.

But he was intelligent enough to know that these jobs were merely a rehearsal for a big job. He knew enough about Morgan to realize that Morgan would never remain content to continue on such a small scale. Sooner or later, Morgan would plan a big job that would carry a twenty-year sentence, and Kitson would be involved.

While he had been trying to make a name for himself in the fight game, Kitson had worked as a driver for the Welling Armoured Truck Agency. He had lasted exactly ten days. The discipline of the Agency had defeated him. His shoes had never been as well polished as those of the other drivers. His driving had been just that shade more careless to earn him bad marks. His punctuality lagged behind. His shooting practice had made the instructor bitter and sarcastic. It came as no surprise to him when the foreman had given him his pay and told him not to come back.

But he had, in those ten days, learned enough about the Agency’s methods and their men to realize that Morgan was taking on a world-beater. It was as if he himself had had the audacity to get into the ring with Floyd Patterson. He might perhaps have a million to one chance of beating the champion, but the chance was so small as to be laughable.

He knew that neither Thomas nor Dirkson would quit, and that meant a gunfight. Someone would get killed. If he were caught, he faced a twenty-year sentence or the electric chair. He had made up his mind as soon as Morgan had outlined the plan not to touch it. Rather, he would walk out on the mob. He would have done exactly this if it hadn’t been for the copper-haired girl.

No girl had ever spoken to him nor looked at him as she had done. Up to the moment when he had faced her and seen the contempt in her eyes and realized her complete lack of fear of him, he had imagined that he had had power over women.

Granted, he did have some kind of animal power over the women who were the camp followers any fourth-rate boxer will find tagging along behind him, but this copperhead had shown him for the first time that the power he had been so proud of was strictly limited. She had made an impact on him that had badly shaken him, and now he was so acutely aware of her that he could think of little else.

So it was because of her, and only because of her that he was going ahead with this job. He knew he was moving into something that was too big for him, that could be his finish, but he hadn’t the moral courage to face her contempt. He stood looking around the scrubland that surrounded the bottleneck, but he failed to see Gypo.

‘Okay, so you’re good,’ he called. ‘Where are you?’

Gypo’s moon-shaped face appeared from behind two boulders, and he waved to Kitson.

‘Here, kid. Pretty good, huh? Me and the invisible man like this,’ and he held up two fingers pressed tightly together.

Kitson walked off the road and joined him.

‘This is some place for an ambush,’ he said, squatting down beside Gypo. He looked at his watch. ‘They should be along in twenty minutes if they’re going to have a fast run.’

Gypo stretched out on his back. Taking a splinter of wood from his pocket, he began to explore his teeth while he stared up at the brilliant blue of the sky.

‘See that sky, kid?’ he said. ‘It reminds me of my home town. No sky like it in the world.’