Hoffman, Paul - The Last Four Things by Hoffman Paul

Author:Hoffman, Paul [Hoffman, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: urn|isbn|9780141957715
Publisher: Penguin Adult
Published: 2010-09-10T04:00:00+00:00

The others, frozen, carried on clearly not listening, pulling apart the armour section by section, cutting the leather straps where they’d not rotted then, throwing the lighter bits and pieces onto the wagon – gauntlets clanged, casques and back plates clattered, armlets and cubiteries pinged and set up a clank and a racket as they rattled over each other as they filled the wagon up. One of the men noticed Cale and Vague Henri. ‘Shut up, Cob!’ The singer stopped instantly, his good humour replaced magically by alert hostility.

Cale stood and watched Vague Henri walk over to the pile.

‘It’s a dollar if you want to look, pal,’ said one of the men.

‘Shut your gob,’ said Vague Henri pleasantly.

‘You’se not allowed here.’

‘And now it’ll be two dollars,’ said the singer.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Vague Henri. ‘I’ll give you what you deserve.’

Cale walked over to the men and gave them a dollar wordless. What had put such a bend in Vague Henri?

‘We agreed on two.’

‘Don’t push your luck.’

He turned his back on the men who seemed to agree that indeed pushing their luck was not a good idea. Cale watched as Vague Henri walked among the strewn armour along the bottom of the great pile and bent down to pick up a half-crushed helmet. It had an enamel badge above the nosepiece just slightly bigger than a man’s thumb – a red and black chequerboard and three blue stars.

‘This is Carmella Materazzi’s coat of arms.’ He nodded over to another helmet exactly the same – but even under the grime one that was clearly pretty new. ‘And that must be his son’s. I’d heard they were both killed but no one knew for sure. Kleist stole the kid’s wallet then got ten dollars when he gave it back and said he’d found it in the Sally Gardens.’ He placed the first helmet carefully on the ground and walked right to the edge of the pile and placed a foot high up as if he were going to climb. With a great heave he pulled out another helmet, this one with a filthily bedraggled plume, raggedy, all colour drained by exposure to the hard winter. ‘I thought I recognized it. This,’ he said, holding the helmet out to Cale, ‘belonged to that shit-bag Lascelles. He clipped me on the ear once for getting in his way.’

‘Well, that’ll teach him,’

Vague Henri laughed. ‘You’re right. Henri’s curse on everyone who does me a bad turn. Let’s hope he suffered.’ He opened and shut the visor the way he had seen the puppeteers in the Memphis market do. ‘Where are your jibes now, mate?’

He looked around the great heap. When all was said and done, Memphis had been a great joy for him. ‘Seems a pity,’ he said, at last, ‘not to make some use of this. God there’s a fortune here.’

The men carefully pretending not to listen could not contain themselves at this.

‘How much, mister?’

‘Ten thousand dollars? Fifteen?’

‘You lie.’

Both Cale and Vague Henri laughed aloud at this.

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