Rule of Night Read Online Free PDF

who respond appreciatively, digging each other in the ribs and laughing because they think Jimmy is genuinely funny and because if they don’t he might throw something.
    â€˜Where you bin?’ Kenny asks in an aside.
    â€˜Seven Stars.’
    â€˜Back early.’
    â€˜Dead.’
    â€˜Seen Crabby?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Bin to town?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜What you drinking?’
    â€˜Pint.’
    Kenny orders three pints and tells the barmaid she’s got a tight little bum, like two hardboiled eggs in a navvy’s hanky. She pulls her face in a kind of leering smile, undecided as to whether she should be flattered by the attentions of this strongly-built youth with the sloppy mouth and the tattooed knuckles. Kenny rests his meaty forearms on the bar and looks directly at her breasts.
    â€˜Do you want a photo?’
    â€˜What of?’ Kenny responds, letting his jaw go slack and his mouth droop open in a dumb show of calculated insolence. His heavy-lidded eyes peruse the outlines of her black bra through her pale yellow blouse. He puts out his lower lip and continues to watch her sullenly as she lines up the pints in front of him.
    â€˜I dreamt about you last night.’
    â€˜Did you?’
    â€˜No, you wouldn’t let—’
    A car screeches outside and everybody rushes to the doors to see a blue Ford Cortina sticking out of a lamp-post. There is glass all over Queensway and a man gets out with blood running down his face, which looks like black treacle in the anaemic light. Everybody watches to see whether he’ll fall down or merely come into the pub to use the phone. Some people at the bus stop escort him across the road and sit him down on the pavement. The car doesn’t burn. Kenny goes back to where Jimmy is halfway through somebody else’s pint.
    â€˜Did he get the chop?’ Jimmy asks between gulps. Kenny lights a Number 6 and shakes his head as he blows smoke out.
    Andy says, ‘They’re ringing for an ambulance.’
    â€˜Bloody Spade,’ Jimmy says, standing there unsteadily at the slopping bar, his coat hanging half off his shoulders and the sleeve of his shirt wringing wet.
    â€˜It’s all right now,’ Kenny says.
    â€˜What did he say?’ Andy says. He’s a biggish lad too, with a broad handsome face and a thick sensitive mouth. He has a razor-blade in his pocket with a strip of adhesive plaster down one side. Kenny grips the wrist of the hand that goes in the pocket in a gesture that is partly restraining, partly conciliatory.
    â€˜Go easy, he’s had a skinful.’
    â€˜Listen, dad—’
    â€˜It’s okay,’ Kenny mouths.
    â€˜What’s he on about?’ Andy says.
    â€˜Nowt. He’s bevvied.’
    â€˜Spades.’ Jimmy emits a gust of air to signify what he thinks of Spades. The movement almost sends him reeling and he has to grab the bar, blinking with surprise, his head wobbling on springs.
    â€˜Now listen—’
    â€˜It’s all right, he’s me uncle.’
    â€˜Well then,’ Andy says, ‘you’d better tell him,’ and staggers back, his hand nearly out of his pocket, as Jimmy slaps him on the shoulder in what is meant to be a friendly pat but is in actual fact a forcible blow.
    â€˜No fence, codger, me yold son, me yold son, me yold …’
    Jimmy tries to make his left hand (the right still clutching the bar) express what his tongue can’t, waving it to and fro with a cigarette very nearly scorching his index finger. Andy looks at this beer-sodden wreck and decides it isn’t worth it. But Jimmy Mangan has only to say ‘Spades’ one more time and he’ll have a razor in his gullet.‘We’d better shoot off,’ Kenny says, giving Andy his pint.
    â€˜Th’all know me, th’all know me,’ Jimmy insists. ‘No fence to no man.’ He rifts deeply and the stench is putrescent. ‘Evry