The Man from St. Petersburg by Ken Follett Page A

large, tough-looking men dressed in leather waistcoats and collarless shirts. Perhaps they were bodyguards. Feliks noted their large bellies and grinned to himself, thinking: I’ll eat them up alive. The two men held quart pots of ale, but the drawf was drinking what looked like gin. The barman handed Feliks his drink and his sausage. “And a glass of the best gin,” Feliks said.
    A young woman at the bar looked at him and said: “Is that for me?” She smiled coquettishly, showing rotten teeth. Feliks looked away.
    When the gin came, he paid and walked over to the group, who were standing near a small window which looked on to the street. Feliks stood between them and the door. He addressed the dwarf. “Mr. Garfield?”
    “Who wants him?” said Garfield in a squeaky voice.
    Feliks offered the glass of gin. “May I speak to you about business?”
    Garfield took the glass, drained it, and said: “No.”
    Feliks sipped his ale. It was sweeter and less fizzy than Swiss beer. He said: “I wish to buy a gun.”
    “I don’t know what you’ve come here for, then.”
    “I heard about you at the Jubilee Street club.”
    “Anarchist, are you?”
    Feliks said nothing.
    Garfield looked him up and down. “What kind of gun would you want, if I had any?”
    “A revolver. A good one.”
    “Something like a Browning seven-shot?”
    “That would be perfect.”
    “I haven’t got one. If I had I wouldn’t sell it. And if I sold it I’d have to ask five pounds.”
    “I was told a pound at the most.”
    “You was told wrong.”
    Feliks reflected. The dwarf had decided that, as a foreigner and an anarchist, Feliks could be rooked. All right, Feliks thought, we’ll play it your way. “I can’t afford more than two pounds.”
    “I couldn’t come down below four.”
    “Would that include a box of ammunition?”
    “All right, four pounds including a box of ammunition.”
    “Agreed,” Feliks said. He noticed one of the bodyguards smothering a grin. After paying for the drinks and the sausage, Feliks had three pounds fifteen shillings and a penny.
    Garfield nodded at one of his companions. The man went behind the bar and out through the back door. Feliks ate his sausage. A minute or two later the man came back carrying what looked like a bundle of rags. He glanced at Garfield, who nodded. The man handed the bundle to Feliks.
    Feliks unfolded the rags and found a revolver and a small box. He took the gun from its wrappings and examined it.
    Garfield said: “Keep it down; no need to show it to the whole bleeding world.”
    The gun was clean and oiled, and the action worked smoothly. Feliks said: “If I do not look at it, how do I know it is good?”
    “Where do you think you are, Harrods?”
    Feliks opened the box of cartridges and loaded the chambers with swift, practiced movements.
    “Put the fucking thing away,” the dwarf hissed. “Give me the money quick and fuck off out of it. You’re fucking mad.”
    A bubble of tension rose in Feliks’s throat and he swallowed dryly. He took a step back and pointed the gun at the dwarf.
    Garfield said: “Jesus, Mary and Joseph.”
    “Shall I test the gun?” Feliks said.
    The two bodyguards stepped sideways in opposite directions so that Feliks could not cover them both with the one gun. Feliks’s heart sank: he had not expected them to be that smart. Their next move would be to jump him. The pub was suddenly silent. Feliks realized he could not get to the door before one of the bodyguards reached him. The big dog growled, sensing the tension in the air.
    Feliks smiled and shot the dog.
    The bang of the gun was deafening in the little room. Nobody moved. The dog slumped to the floor, bleeding. The dwarf’s bodyguards were frozen where they stood.
    Feliks took another step back, reached behind him and found the door. He opened it, still pointing the gun at Garfield, and stepped out.
    He slammed the door, stuffed the gun in his coat pocket and jumped on his bicycle.
    He