clear of him,’ Sprat advised. ‘The Prince can smack you in the kisser, even beat you to death, but at least you’ll know why and what for, but that Deadeye’s a crazy man.’
The next one in the deck, Lardy, was Ukrainian, that was how he got his moniker, because they eat lard there. He was a key man, with big connections among the fences in other cities – all the swag passed through his hands and came back as ‘crunch’, that is, money.
Sprat told Senka that the legless Bosun had really been a bosun in the fleet, a hero proper, known all over the Black Sea. When he started to tell you about the Turks or the high seas, he was absolutely fascinating. His legs were crushed by a steam boiler on board ship. He had crosses and medals and a hero’s pension, but he wasn’t the sort to spend his old age in peace and quiet. What he wanted was something to test his luck, a bit of gusto and excitement. He almost never took his share of the swag, either, and a niner’s share was a fair size, not like Sprat’s.
The sevener and eighter were twin brothers from the Yakimanka District. A smart, dashing pair of lads. The Prince had been advised to take them on by a constable he knew at the First Yakimanka Station. He said the lads were real desperadoes, it would be a shame if they didn’t make the big time, a real waste. And they were nicknamed Maybe and Surely because they had more daring than brains. Maybe wasn’t that bad, that was why he had a higher number, but Surely was a total loon. If the Prince told him to steal the double-headed eagle off the Saviour’s Tower at the Kremlin, he’d start climbing without a second thought.
Then at the end Sprat sighed, rubbed his hands together and said: ‘Anyway, you’ll see us all in action on the job tonight.’
‘What’s the job?’ Senka’s heart stood still – how about that, straight into a job on the very first day! ‘Are we going bombing?’
‘Nah, bombing’s nothing. This is a really wild job. The Prince and the Ghoul have a meet today.’
Senka remembered that Deadeye had asked about the meet too.
‘Is that the one at seven o’clock? What’s it about? This Ghoul, that’s Kotelnichesky, right?’
‘That’s the one. The Prince and him are going up for Ace of Moscow, if you get my drift.’
Senka whistled. So that was it.
The ace was like the tsar of bandits, there was just one for all of Moscow. The ace used to be Kondrat Semyonich, a really big man, everyone in Moscow was afraid of him. They used to say all sorts of things about Kondrat Semyonich, though. That he’d got old and rusty, he didn’t give the young men a chance. Some condemned him for living a life of luxury, not in Khitrovka, like the ace was supposed to do, but in a house on the Yauza. And he didn’t die like a bandit, from a knife or a bullet, or in jail. He drew his last breath on a soft feather bed, like some merchant.
Anyway, the Council had decreed that the ace should be one of the two: the Prince or the Ghoul.
The case for the Prince was clear enough – he was a man on the make. He’d appeared from nowhere, and the jobs he did were breathtaking. But the problem was he was in too much of a hurry and he was obstinate, those were his only flaws. The grandfathers were afraid that power like that might go to his head.
The Ghoul was a different matter altogether. He was from the old guard – the less showy bandits who’d plodded their way to the top. The Ghoul didn’t have any famous jobs to his name, his deck didn’t fire any broadsides, but people were just as much afraid of him as they were of the Prince.
The Ghoul’s deck didn’t make a living from hold-ups, though, they had a new business, one that was kept very quiet: they skimmed from the grain merchants and shopkeepers. Their kind of businessmen were called ‘milkers’. If you wanted your shop to stay safe, and you didn’t want the sanitary inspector picking on you, or the coppers bothering you – then you gave the milker his dough and carried on trading in peace. But as for those who didn’t pay – who thought they could manage or were just plain