Bryce Courtenay - The Potato Factory

'Only if you knows 'ow to get rid of it, Ikey. I ain't got no contacts what wants bill paper.'

Ikey raised his eyebrows in surprise, 'Why, my dear, you sells it to them two you met in the bank today!'

'What? Do business wif that filth?'

Ikey shrugged. 'They's villains, but the best, my dear. We're all villains, given 'arf a chance, everyone in the whole world is villains. But in me experience there be two kinds o' villain, them what's got a bit o' class and them what ain't.' Ikey's dark eyes shone. 'That letter Maggie wrote today, that be most excellent. That be topnotch thinkin', nacherly nasty nogginin', my dear!' Ikey spread his hands wide. 'That's a rare combination what you doesn't find too often in the business o' villainy, brains and the stomach to act.' He paused, scratching the tip of his nose. 'You take my word for it, they be your natural customers, my dear! All you does is wait a year, then come down here with the bill paper what you 'as accumulated, startin' again in four months.' Ikey leaned back. 'You'll make thousands, my dear, thousands and thousands. Your table will be the envy o' dukes and duchesses. The King himself, I dare say, will come to 'ear o' your fine banquets.'

Marybelle picked up the cylinder and waved it at Ikey. 'And what if some villain they send catches me wif this on me way to London?' She drew the cylinder across her throat. 'That's what 'appens.'

'They won't find it will they?' Ikey said puckering his lips. He pointed to the cylinder. 'It be made to be put in a place what a man 'asn't got and a lady 'as. A place where your average villain ain't likely to go pokin' about without your express permission, if you knows what I mean, my dear?'

Marybelle's pretty blue eyes grew large and then shone with delighted surprise. She gave a little squeal, running her fat, greasy fingers along the cylinder's smooth surface.

'Jesus, Ikey! You bleedin' thinks o' everyfink.' In between her laughter she managed to gasp. 'Methinks it will be a tight fit… ha-ha-ha-ha! But wif all the bumpin' o' the coach to London… ha-ha-ha-hee-hee!… I daresay it will bring a lady o' me proportions, oh, goodness lummy, oh, oh… a good deal o' pleasure on the… ha-ha-hee-hee!… journey 'ome!'

Ikey returned to London three days after he had left Marybelle Firkin at the inn with a pork pie stuck in her gob and his precious cylinder safely tucked away elsewhere on her large person. Waiting in the back room of a chop house in Houndsditch until well after dark when a light snow storm, churned with frequent wind flurries, began to fall and which he judged would further conceal his passage, Ikey slipped into the rookery of St Giles and soon thereafter let himself into the seemingly abandoned building which housed the Methodist Academy of Light Fingers.

Creeping up the rickety staircase, he appeared suddenly and to the utmost surprise of half a dozen boys who were playing a game of cribbage by the light of a solitary candle. Huddled beside the hearth directly behind them were as many boys again wrapped in rags and old blankets against the bitter cold.

'Now 'ow many times 'as I told you, keep a sharp eye!' Ikey admonished. 'The lad what's supposed to be watchin' out is asleep on the landin', lushed out and smellin' o' gin!' Ikey sucked at his teeth and wagged a mittened finger at the urchins seated crosslegged around a box. 'Gentlemen, gentlemen! Cribbage in this kind o' light ain't no good for the senses. You'll lose your touch, the light of a candle dulls the mind and makes it too easy to palm a card or deal a crooked 'and. Brightness be what's called for, where everything can be seen, clear as daylight, open and negotiable as a whore's cunny.'

The boys laughed loudly at this last remark but Ikey held up his hand for silence. 'A cardsharp to be warranted any good must make 'is play in the best o' conditions. We'll 'ave no second-rate broadsman spreadin' the flats in darkness in my school o' learnin'! A trade ain't worth 'avin' if you're not the best there is at it.'

His young pupils crowded about him. 'There's a people what's lookin' for ya, Ikey, is ya in lavender then?' a young tooler named Sweetface Mulligan enquired.

'Perhaps I is and perhaps I ain't, it all depends on who is lookin' and whether it be opportunity knockin' or disadvantage breakin' down the door.'

'It's Bow Street! Some say it be City police! All about Petticoat Lane they is! Anyone seen ya, they asks! Rewards is offered! Never seen so much law about, 'as we lads? Wotcha do, Ikey? Murder was it? There's talk o' forgery! Millions o' pounds! There be a poster o' yer gob pasted everywhere! We's proud to know ya, Ikey!' All this and more they chorused crowding around Ikey, the smaller ones hopping up and down and jumping on the backs of the larger boys to get a closer look in the semi-darkened room.

'And Mistress Hannah!' a boy they called Onion, whose birth name was Pickles, shouted. 'She been lookin' for ya an' all!'

Ikey shrugged his shoulders. 'It's true, my dears, the constabulary 'as a sharp eye peeled for me.' He looked around slowly, spread his hands and his face took on a look of regret. 'O' course I apologises for scarperin' without informin' you, gentlemen. A matter of urgent expediency, you understand? No offence intended and I 'opes none is taken. No time to pay me respects or bid you all adieu.'

They nodded, happy at the compliment he'd paid their mutual fraternity. Ikey rolled his eyes and seemed to look at each of them in turn. 'Now we 'asn't seen me, 'as we, lads? I means, no seein' to the degree o' not seein' nothin' at all!'

Ikey's fingers flicked heavenwards as though to expel the memory of having seen him completely from their minds. He stopped and lifted the candle from the box, the hot glass warming his mittened fingers. Holding the lighted jar before him, he inspected each boy's dirty face, watching as they solemnly nodded acquiescence. 'We doesn't want no pigs sniffin' round askin' awkward questions now does we, my dears?'

It was not Ikey's intention to stay long at the Academy of Light Fingers, although he did not indicate this to the urchins around him. While they were well trained in all matters of villainy and each had a healthy disregard for the constabulary, he knew he could ill afford to trust them. They were 'street Arabs' seldom allowed the importance of being noticed and any one of them with three or four noggins of gin to loosen his tongue would not be able to resist the urge to boast of his knowledge of Ikey's return. Ikey needed them now for only one purpose, to find Bob Marley as quickly as possible.

Under normal circumstances there were half a hundred places in the surrounding rookeries where Ikey might indefinitely conceal his presence, though he was not foolish enough to suppose that these would now apply. As a Jew in trouble with the law he was fair prey for all but his own kind. Even though his standing as the Prince of Fences was considerable, they would come snarling in for the kill, the promise of a large reward sufficient to overcome their normal tendency to remain stum. Ikey was aware the criminal code of honour was a fragile thing and would always buckle with the opportunity for a quick profit or a favour returned. He knew this as a certainty, for he was himself no different.

With the promise of a good tightener washed down with a pint of best beer at the nearby chop house, and with the further inducement of a shilling for all and a gold sovereign for the boy who turned out to be the fortunate finder, Ikey sent his young associates off into the winter streets. He directed them to the Haymarket at the popular West End to find and bring Bob Marley back to him.

'When you finds 'im, ask for 'is ear, very quiet mind, say that Ikey Solomon requests the pleasure of 'is company.'