carriage rolled up. His Worship got in and wagged his finger at the crowd, as if to say: ‘Look at you, hoodlum!’ and rode off. He was just putting on airs, he could have walked –the station was no distance away at all.
‘Don’t let it bother you, Ivan Fedotich,’ said Yeroshenko. ‘Your fine’s on me, I’ll cover you.’
‘I’ll give you “cover me”,’ Boxman snarled. ‘You won’t get me off your back for a two lousy hundred. After the things I’ve let a crook like you get away with!’
That was Boxman for you. Yeroshenko could hang crosses all over himself, and kiss the governor general to death, but to Boxman he would always be Afonka the Thief.
Senka’s visit to the basement was a lot easier than the first time. He borrowed an oil lamp in the Labour, left his cap as a pledge, and got to the chamber very quickly. Less than ten minutes by his watch.
The first thing he did was count the silver rods. But it would take for ever to shift them all. He counted a hundred by one wall, and he hadn’t even got halfway. He was dripping with sweat.
And he found the leather sole off a boot, well gnawed by the rats. He pulled some of the stones and bricks from the blocked-off doorway, too, he wanted to see what was behind it. But then he got bored and gave up.
He wore himself out so much that he took only four rods, not five. That was enough for Samshitov, and they were heavy, they weighed about five pounds each.
When Senka got back to the jeweller’s shop and was already reaching his hand out to the door, someone whistled behind him –it was a special Khitrovka whistle – and then an owl hooted: Whoo-oo whoo-oo!
He turned round, and there were the lads hanging about on the corner of Petroverigsky Lane. That was really rotten luck.
But what could he do? He went over.
Prokha said: ‘We were told as you’d been picked up.’
Squinteye asked: ‘What are you carrying that scrap about for?’
But Mikheika blinked guiltily and said: ‘Don’t be angry ’cause I grassed on you to that Chinaman. I was dead frightened when he started laying everyone out. You know what Chinamen are like.’
‘If you don’t like a fright, then stay home at night,’ Senka growled, but without any real malice. ‘I’d hang one on your ugly mug, you creep, but I ain’t got time. Business.’
Prokha said to him, real spiteful: ‘What kind of business have you got, Speedy? You were a businessman once, but not no more.’
Senka realised everyone already knew he’d done a runner on the Prince. ‘I’ll tell you, I’ve got a job for the Armenian here, putting bars on his windows. See, iron bars.’
‘In a jewellery shop?’ Prokha drawled, and screwed his eyes up. ‘Well, well. You’re even slyer than I thought. Who are you with now, then? That Chinaman? And you’ve decided to do the Armenian over? Now that’s slick!’
‘I’m on my own.’
Prokha didn’t believe him. He took Senka off to one side, put a hand on his shoulder and whispered: ‘Don’t say, if you don’t want to. But you should know: the Prince is looking for you. He’s threatening to knife you.’
He gave Senka a pinch and ran off, then whistled and scoffed: ‘Be seeing you, bandit boy.’
And he darted off down the street with the lads.
Senka realised what Prokha was scoffing at when he saw that Sprat’s silver watch was missing from the belt his pants. So that was why the lousy scum had been all over him like that!
But he wasn’t too upset about it. It was just a watch – worth twenty-five roubles at the outside – but the idea of the Prince spreading his threats around, now that really got him down. He’d have to keep his eyes peeled.
Senka walked into the shop and the parrot greeted him, but he was feeling really low. His mind wasn’t on the money, it was on the Prince’s knife.
He dumped the bars on the counter and the parrot squawked. ‘I brought four. That’s all there are.’
But when he walked out on to Maroseika Street five minutes later, he’d forgotten all about the Prince.
And there it was, under his shirt, close to his heart, a huge amount of money – four petrushas, five-hundred-rouble notes. Senka had never set eyes on anything like that.
He fingered the crisp notes through his shirt, trying to imagine what it was like to live in luxury.
HOW SENKA LIVED