Page 35 of A Ruse of Shadows
If it weren’t for her, Miss Charlotte—in masculine disguise as Herrinmore, the parvenu Mr. Nelson’s bookish-looking general dogsbody—would have been the one standing out like a sore thumb in a crowd of working-class men drinking ale, eating whelks, and happilyanticipating bouts of violence to come—no one present, however, matched the description Mrs. Claiborne had given of the scarred man who had quarreled with Mr. Underwood at her villa.
The boxer studied Miss Charlotte more closely, even though Mrs. Watson was confident that she herself was at once the most outlandish and most beautiful person inside these walls. Was it a survivor’s instinct that had him focus greater attention on the more dangerous individual, even if she presented herself as a harmless minion?
He returned his gaze to the bowl of peanuts on the table that he had been shelling since he sat down.
“Shall we order something to eat?” asked Mrs. Watson.
Johnny E. looked up. “Yes, for after the match, please.”
His voice, so young. Mrs. Watson realized that she wasn’t looking at a man with a boyish face but a boy with eyes too old for his no-more-than-nineteen summers.
The slightly singsongy quality of his speech, his blue-black hair, dark lugubrious eyes, and bronze complexion that she had assumed to have been tanned due to outdoor work—had the boy, in fact, been baptized as Giovanni?
Miss Charlotte, upon hearing Johnny E.’s affirmative answer to Mrs. Watson’s question about food, had leaped up to order at the bar. Now she returned and sat down heavily. “The kitchen will have two rump steak pies packed up for you. Chips, too. And a boiled pudding.”
Johnny E. nodded. And then, perhaps coming to the conclusion that by accepting the bribe, he must now give something in return, he said, “You want me to tell you about Mumble and Jessie?”
“We can judge them for ourselves. It’s your Mr. Underwood that we need to know about,” said Mrs. Watson. “I understand you were the first boxer he took on?”
Johnny E. nodded again, somewhat unwillingly.
“But you were also the first to leave him?”
The boy shifted but answered flatly, “I’ve a sick mother and three younger siblings. They need to eat.”
Poverty was written all over him, from his too-slight frame to theatlas of patches on his jacket, little fiefdoms of careful fabric matching and even more meticulous needlework on a garment that could very well predate his birth.
“Do you believe that he’s dead?”
“Don’t know.” As if sensing that it might be an insufficient answer, he shelled another peanut and added, “Sometimes people get in trouble and have to go where nobody can find them.”
“Do you know where he might have gone?”
“No. He never told us anything about himself.”
His reticence was not something Mrs. Watson had encountered a great deal in her life. In fact, her usual problem was how to extricate herself from those who couldn’t stop unburdening themselves on her, pouring out torrents of headaches and heartaches.
“Did you try to search for him?” she tried again.
He shook his head, an outright no.
“Why not? Was he not good to you?”
A burst of laughter came from near the door of the pub. They all glanced in that direction. It was a table full of burly men; an especially large specimen with a tattoo on his neck pointed at them.
At Johnny E.
Johnny E. only shelled another peanut. He collected a handful of shelled peanuts and ate one. “Mr. Underwood was good to me—he bought me my first pair of decent shoes. But I don’t have time to wait for him or look for him. I’m lucky if I have two more years in the ring before nobody wants to see me fight anymore.”
How well Mrs. Watson understood that feeling of pressure, of valuable time leaking away unstoppably. A man’s athletic career might be as brief as a pretty girl’s stint on the stage, and his future almost as uncertain. “You aren’t worried about Mr. Underwood coming back and being displeased with you?”
Johnny E. began peeling peanuts again, the already shelled and uneaten peanuts in his palm having disappeared. Into a pocket? “What was I supposed to do, let my sister go hungry or stop buying medicine for my mother?”
“What about your two mates? You said you can’t afford to wait for Mr. Underwood. What about them?”
“Mumble and Jessie? Theyarelooking for him.”
“Have they found out anything?”
