no dishonour to be there even if you have no loot to spend. The barman, a young boy with a face like cheese, seemed worried also; and as I held my lager beer, casting my eyes around, I spoke to him freely of his look of great mistrust.
‘But those lads over by the piano,’ he said to me. ‘They come in here for hours and never buy a thing.’
‘Why should they not? This is their meeting-place, for exchange of gossip, information, and other necessities of life.’
‘But if they come in here, then they should spend.’
‘Man,’ I explained, ‘you will find when they spend, they do spend. You will make more profit from them in one evening than of your bitter-sipping English customers in a whole week.’
He seemed to doubt me. ‘The guv’nor tried turfing them all out at first,’ he said, ‘but he’s given up the struggle.’ He leant across the counter. ‘Tell me something,’ he went on. ‘You don’t mind me asking?’
‘Speak, man. I listen.’
‘How do you tell which is which among you people?’
‘You mean we all look the same, like sheep?’
‘No, not exactly. I mean, which is African, and which is West Indian – all I can tell is the Yanks, and then only when they open up their mouths.’
I shook my head at such enormous ignorance. ‘Do you know,’ I said to him, ‘my grandmother cannot tell any one Englishman from another?’ I left Montgomery with his whiskies, and went round into the larger bar to look for customers.
And there I caught sight of many quite familiar faces: Ronson Lighter, playing the pin-table, and Larry the GI, and also my brother Arthur, who I was not all that pleased to talk to because of the theft of all that loot my dad sent his mum, and also, lurking away in an evil corner underneath the stairways, that one-time champion boxer, Jimmy Cannibal.
‘What say, man,’ I said to Ronson Lighter. ‘Long time no see.’
‘Well, look now, who’s here! Where you been hiding yourself, Mr Fortune? Somebody here’s been searching out for you.’
‘Called what?’
‘A seaman from back home who won’t tell his real name, but says just to call him Laddy Boy. He has a letter for you from your sister Peach.’
‘He’s in here now, this seaman?’
‘I haven’t noticed him around yet, but if he calls, I’ll hold him for you.’
‘Thank you, my man. And tell me now. I’m in business, Ronson Lighter, in this article,’ (and I showed him some). ‘You interested at all?’
Ronson put his body so as to hide mine from the general view. ‘Be careful of that little white boy Alfy Bongo,’ he advised me. ‘He comes here to meet our African drummers, so he says, but I think he’s a queer boy, and you cannot trust them.’
I looked at this blond and pimply creature, chatting and giggling to some West Indians, and I made a clear note of his skinny, feeble frame in my recollection.
‘I’ll take a stick or two,’ said Ronson Lighter.
‘Here, man. How’s our Billy?’
‘I’m worried about that man, Johnny, and so is he. He thinks the Law has got the eye on him real hard. The house is being watched, we know.’
‘Why should they turn the heat on Billy after all this time?’
‘Is averages, Johnny. Six months they turn you loose, then one month they turn the heat. Nobody knows why. Perhaps you’re next man on their Vice Department list, that’s all. Or perhaps somebody been talking. Cannibal, say.’ (And Ronson Lighter looked across at him.) ‘Or maybe even Dorothy.’
‘Not Dorothy?’
‘I don’t know why, man, but I believe this Dorothy plans to cut away from Billy, and she thinks the best way is to get him put inside. Perhaps,’ said Ronson, lighting up his charge, ‘it is because of you, who she prefers to Mr Whispers.’
‘I’m not even slightly interested in that chick.’
‘Oh, I believe you man, if you say so, of course.’
Ronson was dragging now, but still hadn’t paid me any money. I touched on his arm and gently held out my hand.
‘Will you take one of these instead?’ he asked me.
They were pawn tickets for various articles. All city Spades hold pawn tickets, and if the man’s honest they’re quite as good as money, often better if you can get them with the discount. I took my pick.
‘And Hamilton,’ said Ronson Lighter. ‘How does he keep?’
‘Bad. He’s using all his dope allowance now, not selling any. Even buying more of that poison whenever he can.’
Ronson lowered down his voice.