Catalyst Read Online Free PDF Page B

backhand. Tears welled in the boy’s eyes and blood ran freely from his nose. Jimmy pushed him to the ground and kicked him three times as he lay there. He squealed with pain, dragging himself to his feet, half running, half limping away.
    â€œAnyone else want to stay?”
    The rest of the crowd quickly started to leave the street and head back the way they had come, following the injured boy.
    Kevin and Karl had not taken their eyes off the motionless figure at the factory gates. When the last of the crowd had left the end of the street, Jimmy joined them again and, with him leading, as he always did, they set off walking towards him.
    The torrential rain bounced off the cobbles. They were about forty yards away when the man turned to face them. The brothers slowed down, cautiously anticipating the pending action.
    The man noted that they looked like three gunslingers on a western street, line abreast, arms hanging loosely but in readiness by their sides, waiting for the first move. He smiled at the image.
    â€œWhy, look’ya here,” he said, in an authentic cowboy drawl, “It’s the good ol’ Brady bunch. The Hole-in-the-Head gang. Howdy, boys. Welcome to Dead Man’s Canyon.”
    The brothers stopped.
    Jimmy screwed his face into a snarl.
    â€œWho the fuck are you? You’re a fucking weirdo, I know that!”
    â€œWhy, what a hurtful thing to say, Jim-boy. That sure ain’t friendly-like,” said the man, still in character. He looked around him at the sombre walls of the buildings.
    â€œJust look at this shit-hole,” he said, dropping the fake voice. “What a hell of a place for you to die.” He looked up into the sky and felt the rain beating down into his face. “At least the blood will get washed away,” he added. His voice was soft and refined and there was now no trace of the Ulster accent.
    The brothers had not moved. The initiative had been taken away from them completely by the unnerving composure of the stranger.
    â€œSo here we are,” the man went on. “The brothers Brady. Jimmy, nearly twenty-one, and Karl and Kevin, eighteen. Twins – nowhere near identical; in fact, amazingly different. One a big, fat slob; the other a pathetic little runt. Only one thing in common – neither possesses a single brain cell.”
    â€œYou’re a fucking wanker!” shouted Jimmy. “And if you think you can talk your way out of anything, you’re fucking stupid as well. And how come you know us? Are we supposed to recognise you or something?”
    â€œNo,” answered the man, “you don’t know me. But we do have a mutual acquaintance. An elderly lady on the estate. Acquaintance might be the wrong word, because I don’t know if you ever actually met her, but some very bad things happened to her front door. Someone painted some really bad words on it, then smashed it in a few times with a sledge hammer or something and put dog-shit through the letter box. I guess that was all your doing. She tried to kill herself three times because of you guys.”
    As he was talking, the man had moved slowly away from the gates towards the brothers until he had halved the distance between them.
    â€œYou look a bit worried, Jimmy,” the man continued. “I’m surprised really, considering you’re just about the hardest guys on the planet, aren’t you? Terrorising all those defenceless people; getting children to do the dirty work while you hide in the shadows. And I mean, just look how you dealt with that kid just now. How old was he – twelve, thirteen? You showed him, didn’t you? Don’t mess with me! Fucking big hard-man me!”
    He paused, giving them a chance to respond. No-one spoke.
    â€œHey, but that’s not fair, is it?” he went on. “I could see how it was with those guys in the pub. Nobody wanted to look you in the eye. They were even too scared to turn down a drink