Роберт Фиш - Rough Diamond

“How did it come to happen?”

Luckner shrugged as if it were unimportant. He poured himself a big drink from the bottle and drained it in one gulp. “He pulled something on me,” he said, still not looking up, and refilled his glass.

“A little old man. With these.” Barney took the shears from his pocket and tossed them on the table contemptuously. “You, the big, strong, hard Jap-trick expert from Tokyo and Cape Town. And you had to kick him to death to protect yourself.”

“He pulled them on me,” Luckner said stubbornly. “I don’t let anyone pull anything on me.”

Barney looked at him coldly. He reached over, took the bottle from the table and handed it to the bartender standing there watching. He turned back to Luckner. “Finish your drink and get out. And don’t come back.”

The liquor was beginning to have its effect on Luckner.

“Now listen, you little runt Jew,” he said, looking up at last, his temper beginning to return. “D’you know why you want me to get out and not come back? So’s you can cheat me out of what’s mine, like you been cheating me all the bloody months I’ve been here!” He sneered. “We split the profits fifty-fifty, do we? With you keeping the books? What a laugh! Sure we split — ninety-ten, and who do you think gets the ninety? Little Barney Barnato, that’s who!” He drained the glass with Barney watching and listening quietly. Luckner looked at the glass a moment and then tossed it into a corner of the room. “You don’t fool me, Isaacs, who wants to call himself Barnato so’s people might think he’s an Eye-tie instead of a kike! You don’t fool me, Isaacs! Fifty-fifty — Jew percentage!”

Barney fought against the flush of temper that rose in him.

“Just get out!” he said, his voice nearly cracking under his growing anger. His Cockney came back automatically. “What brass y’got comin’ ye’ll get, and not a farthing more! Y’killed a man, me wife’s pa, a poor addle-brained old crock what was a bit off his bean but couldn’t help hisself none. If I didn’t know them shears I’d seen them so often, and if I didn’t think he really pulled them on you — and I wonder what y’was doin’ to make him do somethin’ like that — I’d see you hang if it was the last thing I ever did fer the old man! Now get out!”

Luckner sneered, the liquor now fully at work, and his temper as well. All the frustration of having seen and desired Fay Barnato all those months without ever having had her, and with the chances of ever having her now sharply reduced by the unfortunate circumstances of his having killed the girl’s old man by pure chance, were in his voice.

“Your poor cunt’s pa I killed, did I? Well, let me tell you something about your poor cunt. Anytime I wanted her I had her, and she isn’t all that prime if you ask my opinion! Oh, she loves getting it from me, used to beg for it as a matter of fact—”

It was as far as he got. Barney, a growl in his throat, was on top of the man. Luckner’s chair with him in it went over with a crash and Barney was on top of him still, in insane fury, choking him. Luckner rolled, choking, breaking the grip, and then found himself being battered by vicious blows to his head and face. He shoved with all his strength, trying to hold the infuriated smaller man away with his greater reach, but Barney would not be denied, breaking through, his fists sledgehammers that battered Luckner unmercifully. The larger man finally scrambled loose and came to his feet only to be tackled fiercely about the knees and brought down. Once more he managed to get to his feet to face Barney and find that the punishing blows could not be avoided. Luckner tried a Japanese grip but Barney avoided it almost contemptuously. Luckner tried to protect himself from the constant barrage of blows and found himself on the floor. He sat up and wiped a hand across his face, staring in angry shock to see the blood that covered it. Barney picked up a chair, raising it on high, determined to bash the brains out of the liar who had had the nerve to impugn the good name of his beloved Fay, but the chair was suddenly seized by someone behind him, and others swarmed in to hold him, pulling him away.

“Barney, for God’s sake!” It was the bartender who had put down the whiskey bottle hurriedly and had grabbed the chair. “You’ll kill the man!”

“Damn right I’ll kill the bastard! Let me go!”

“Barney, cool down! He didn’t pull a knife on you or anything! He ain’t worth hanging for!”

Barney slowly came to his senses. He allowed the chair to be taken from him while he stood trembling from the force of his fury. Luckner was staring up at him with a look of pure hatred on his face, wondering how this little man whom he could break in two had managed to not only beat him but make him look a fool. It was something Luckner knew he would never forget and never forgive. Barney tugged himself loose of the hands that had been restraining him. “I’m all right. Let go.” He took a deep breath, trying to control his trembling, and looked down at Luckner with no expression at all on his face. “Get out.” It seemed to him he was standing there talking, listening to his own voice as from a stranger somewhere off to one side. “If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you.”

He watched Luckner come to his feet and stagger from the bar into the street. He turned to the bartender, who was watching him anxiously.

“I’m all right. Get the old man down to the undertaker, tell him I’ll be down later to talk to him. Clean up the hallway. See the place is straightened up.”

“Right, Barney.”

He slowly climbed the stairs, skirted the dead body in the hall, and walked into their room. He closed the door behind him and walked to the bed, slowly feeling the trembling in his hands and arms subside. He sat on the edge of the bed. Fay had stopped crying and was staring at the ceiling almost sightlessly. She turned and looked at him inquiringly. Barney leaned over and kissed her cheek; she put her arms around him, holding him tightly, the tears beginning to come again.

“Oh, Barney—”

“It’s all right, darling,” he said softly. “It’s all over. Luckner’s gone and he won’t be back. Your pa will be well taken care of. We’ll give him a good funeral.”

“… the poor man…”

“He wasn’t a happy man since your ma died, honey. After the funeral I’ll go down to the tent and see that everything’s taken care of.”

“No,” Fay said, a bit more of her usual strength in her voice. “I will. You won’t know where everything is, or who has clothes half finished. We’ll have to find someone else to finish them…”

“Someone else?” Barney tried to sound insulted. “Don’t you think I can do it? I ain’t a bad snip meself, if I’m the one’s got to say it.” He dropped the Cockney. “We’ll both go down and do the job right. Your pa would want that.”

“Oh, Barney!” she said with a catch in her voice, and held him even tighter. “I love you so much! I don’t know what I’d do without you!”

“You’ll never have to find out, I promise you that,” Barney said quietly, and knew that despite the horror of that day he had never felt happier or more secure than he did at that moment.

The directors of the De Beers Mining Company were holding a meeting in a private room of the Kimberley Club. Present were Cecil Rhodes, Charles Rudd, Alfred Beit, Dr. Leander Starr Jameson, and Neville Pickering, Rhodes’ private secretary. The advantages of using the club rather than their own company offices just two blocks down the street were many. The club was less austere, for one thing; for another, there was a small serving door from the private room to the bar which permitted liquid refreshments to be served during the meeting. Then, too, the dining room of the Kimberley Club served the best food in town, should the meeting prove to run into the lunch hour. But while holding this particular meeting at the club made for pleasant surroundings, the subject of the meeting was less pleasant. They had met to discuss what to do about Barney Barnato.