Brighton Rock Read Online Free PDF

not be him again.’
    ‘Not me,’ Cubitt said. ‘Suppose they’d found the card and saw me looking. Better take a chance and leave it alone,’ he urged in a whisper.
    ‘Talk natural,’ the Boy said, ‘talk natural,’ as the waitress came back to the table.
    ‘Do you boys want any more?’ she asked.
    ‘Yes,’ the Boy said, ‘we’ll have ice-cream.’
    ‘Stow it, Pinkie,’ Dallow protested when the girl had left them, ‘we don’t want ice-cream. We ain’t a lot of tarts, Pinkie.’
    ‘If you don’t want ice-cream, Dallow,’ the Boy said, ‘you go to Snow’s and get that card. You’ve got guts, haven’t you?’
    ‘I thought we was done with it all,’ Dallow said. ‘I’ve done enough. I’ve got guts, you know that, but I was scared stiff. . . Why, if they’ve found him before time, it’d be crazy to go into Snow’s.’
    ‘Don’t talk so loud,’ the Boy said. ‘If nobody else’ll go,’ he said, ‘I’ll go. I’m not scared. Only I get tired sometimes of working with a mob like you. Sometimes I think I’d be better alone.’ Afternoon moved across the water. He said, ‘Kite was all right, but Kite’s dead. Which was your table?’ he asked Spicer.
    ‘Just inside. On the right of the door. A table for one. It’s got flowers on it.’
    ‘What flowers?’
    ‘I don’t know what flowers,’ Spicer said. ‘Yellow flowers.’
    ‘Don’t go, Pinkie,’ Dallow said, ‘better leave it alone. You can’t tell what’ll happen,’ but the Boy was already on his feet, moving stiffly down the long narrow room above the sea. You couldn’t tell if he was scared; his young ancient poker-face told nothing.
    In Snow’s the rush was over and the table free. The wireless droned a programme of weary music, broadcast by a cinema organist—a great
vox humana
trembled across the crumby stained desert of used cloths: the world’s wet mouth lamenting over life. The waitress whipped the cloths off as soon as the tables were free and laid tea things. Nobody paid any attention to the Boy; they turned their back when he looked at them. He slipped his hand under the cloth and found nothing there. Suddenly the little spurt of vicious anger rose again in the Boy’s brain and he smashed a salt sprinkler down on the table so hard that the base cracked. A waitress detached herself from the gossiping group and came towards him, cold-eyed, acquisitive, ash-blonde. ‘Well?’ she said, taking in the shabby suit, the too young face.
    ‘I want service,’ the Boy said.
    ‘You’re late for the Lunch.’
    ‘I don’t want lunch,’ the Boy said. ‘I want a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits.’
    ‘Will you go to one of the tables laid for tea, please?’
    ‘No,’ the Boy said. ‘This table suits me.’
    She sailed away again, superior and disapproving, and he called after her, ‘Will you take that order?’
    ‘The waitress serving your table will be here in a minute,’ she said and moved away to the gossips by the service door. The Boy shifted his chair, the nerve in his cheek twitched, again he put his hand under the cloth: it was a tiny action, but it might hang him if he was observed. But he could feel nothing, and he thought with fury of Spicer: he’ll muddle once too often, we’d be better without him.
    ‘Was it tea you wanted, sir?’ He looked sharply up with his hand under the cloth: one of those girls who creep about, he thought, as if they were afraid of their own footsteps: a pale thin girl younger than himself.
    He said, ‘I gave the order once.’
    She apologized abjectly. ‘There’s been such a rush. And it’s my first day. This was the only breathing spell. Have you lost something?’
    He withdrew his hand, watching her with dangerous and unfeeling eyes. His cheek twitched again; it was the little things which tripped you up, he could think of no reason at all for having his hand under the table. She went on helpfully, ‘I’ll have to change the cloth again for tea, so if