The World in My Pocket

‘Yeah, there was something about her,’ Kitson said uneasily. ‘I felt the same way.’ He hadn’t the courage to admit to Gypo that he had voted with the rest of them because he was afraid of the girl’s contempt. He had no hope that this job would succeed. It was a bad one; too big for them; he was sure of that, and he felt a sudden surge of pity for Gypo because he was living out a dream: this was the one job they wouldn’t get away with.

‘It’s funny, isn’t it?’ Gypo said. ‘She’s only a kid, and yet there’s that thing about her,’ he broke off abruptly and lifted his head, his small black eyes suddenly alert.

Kitson stared at him.

‘What is it?’

‘I heard something,’ Gypo said. He was motionless, listening. ‘Something moved. It wouldn’t be a snake, kid?’

‘A snake? So what? A snake wouldn’t come near us,’ Kitson said irritably. He wanted to continue the conversation about the girl. She was the most important subject in the world to him.

‘This could be snake country,’ Gypo said. His fat squat body was rigid. ‘I’ll tell you something, kid. I’ve a horror of snakes. I thought I heard something move over there.’

Frowning, Kitson rolled over on his side and looked to where Gypo was pointing.

‘Forget it,’ he said, annoyed with Gypo for having broken the trend of the conversation. ‘No snake is going to get anywhere near you unless you bother it.’

‘My kid brother was killed by a snake,’ Gypo said, his voice tense. ‘He was lying just the way I am and this snake came from nowhere and bit him in the face. He died before I could get him home. He was around ten: imagine that: a lovely kid; fat like butter and as brown as a nut. This snake . . .’

‘For the love of Mike!’ Kitson broke in. ‘Why the hell should I want to hear about your brother? Okay, so he was bitten by a snake. It could happen to anyone. Let it lie, will you?’

Gypo lifted his head and looked at him reproachfully.

‘You wouldn’t talk like that if he had been your brother,’ he said. ‘It’s something I’ll never forget. It’s given me a horror of snakes.’

‘How the hell did we get talking about snakes?’ Kitson said. ‘We were talking about this girl, and then all of a sudden we have this crap about snakes and your brother.’

‘I thought I heard something.’

‘So okay, you heard something. So what? Get this snake crap out of your mind, will you?’

Gypo started to say something when he saw in the distance a cloud of dust. He put his hand on Kitson’s arm and pointed.

‘Think that’s them?’

Kitson stared down the long, twisting road and he felt a sudden cold lump of fear form at the back of his throat. Instinctively, he wedged his body closer into the ground, and he put out his hand, pressing Gypo down as he said in a whisper, ‘Yes: here they come!’

Both men remained motionless, watching the approaching truck.

It came at a surprising speed, scattering dust as it approached the bottleneck. Taking the bend, it was for a moment lost to sight, then it came around the bend, moving more slowly and more cautiously and Kitson glanced at his wristwatch, noting the time as the truck passed through the bottleneck.

They had a brief but impressive view of the driver and the guard as the truck swept past.

Gypo sat up, his eyes taking in as much of the truck as his brain could memorize.

They watched the truck turn the next bend and disappear in a cloud of dust, and then both men relaxed, looking at each other uneasily.

‘It looks tough,’ Gypo said and started to scratch under his armpit. ‘Did you see those two? Santa Maria! They look pretty tough too!’

Kitson had had a good view of both the driver and the guard as the truck had gone past. He knew these two men fairly intimately. He had warned Morgan about them, but now, seeing them sitting behind the windshield of the truck, he realized how formidable they were, and he had a cold clutch of fear when he thought that in a few days, he would be having a showdown with them.

‘What are you worrying about?’ he said as casually as he could. ‘You don’t have to tackle them. Okay, so they’re tough. What do you think we are - powder puffs, like she said?’

Gypo shook his head, his face uneasy.

‘Those two look mean to me. I’m glad I don’t have to tackle them.’

Kitson took out his notebook and wrote down the time the truck had passed through the bottleneck.

‘Who asked you to tackle them anyway?’ he said curtly. ‘Morgan and Bleck will take care of them.’

‘And the girl,’ Gypo said. ‘She has the toughest end of it. A girl like that. I keep thinking what she said about if he grabbed her gun she would shoot him. Do you think she meant it?’

Kitson had been thinking about that too and he had wondered about it. He could see the sea-green eyes, her tense expression and he grimaced.

‘I don’t know.’ He got up on to his knees and looked up and down the road. ‘Let’s get going. How do you feel about busting open that truck?’

‘Frank says I can have three to four weeks to work on it,’