Lucius the Club | Page 9

not where I'd hoped he would be. I'd hoped he would be straight ahead of me. But he wasn't. He was to the left.
'On your feet, Billy,' I said.
'Wot?' He looked at me as if he couldn't believe his ears. 'Wot you say?'
'Stand up,' I told him. 'Now.'
And he was dumb enough to do so. If he'd cut and run at that point, gone round behind the bar, perhaps, and thrown bottles at me, he might have got away. But I was just Lucius the Club. Even if I was carrying a shotgun. What did he have to fear from me?
He stood up, pushing his chair back and moving to one side.
Which was exactly what I wanted, because now he was separate from the other four men.
So I shot him.

*
At this distance in time I can't pretend to remember every detail. But Billy went down, and the others ducked for cover, scrambling on all fours, I think - some of them - for shelter behind the bar.
I went over and looked at Billy and I could see immediately that he was dead. There was no way he was ever going to recover from a wound like that.
So I turned around and left.
I didn't hurry. I walked slowly out of the bar and down the stairs. No one followed me. I took out the empty cartridge, put it in my pocket, and hid the gun under my coat.
When I reached the street door I opened it a fraction, found that the street was empty, and then walked home.
I went into the living-room and returned to watching television. I hadn't been gone long. Twenty minutes at the most.
About eleven o'clock, I heard voices on the stairs. I turned down the sound on the television and went out into the hall to say goodbye to the Judge. It was only polite. I shook his hand, and called him Sir. He liked that.

*
The next morning was much like any other Monday morning. I slept well, oddly enough. Then I did some Oxford work, and after lunch Mama suggested that I should go out and test the temperature - as she put it.
So I went out.
The shooting of Billy Marwell had been too late for the morning papers, but I wandered over to the local newsagent and bought the Evening Standard. Rather to my surprise there was no report of a shooting on the front page. The headlines were devoted to a possible strike by the Tube drivers. Only on page two was there a paragraph saying 'Man Shot in Soho'. Nobody, it seemed, was interested in reading about Billy Marwell, a small-time crook who had been gunned down, it was thought, as part of a gang war.
I found myself thinking that this was really rather disappointing. So I wandered off into the street market, as I often did. And there I had the first inkling that Mama had been right. She had said that every man present when I shot Billy Marwell would tell everyone he knew what had happened - everyone bar the police, of course - and when I went to buy some fruit from a man I'd known for years, he actually flinched when he saw me. He stepped back a pace, mouth dropping open.
I was rather proud of that. I winked at him, and he tried to grin, but failed. And there were one or two other reactions too. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a few nudges, so generally speaking I could see that the word was out.
Which both terrified me and fascinated me.
I was astonished by how calm I was able to appear, while at one and the same time I was in dread that a man in a blue uniform would put his hand on my shoulder at any moment.
Of course I realised early on that a good many of those who heard the story simply didn't believe it. Lucius? Lucius shot Billy Marwell? Ridiculous. Those were the people who heard it third or fourth hand. But then, if they knew one of the men who was said to have been there, they would seek him out in a pub, or on the street corner. And he would tell them straight - yes, it was Lucius. Yes, I had had a few, but I know bloody Lucius when I see him - known him since he was a kid.
And so gradually the word spread. At least among the criminal fraternity. Just as Mama had said it would. Lucius had done the job. And Lucius was therefore a man to be reckoned with. A man who had to be treated with respect. He wasn't just some bloody cripple - Carol's kid - the one with the gammy leg. Lucius was not a good man to