Page 28 of Compulsion

“Stewart was your friend.”

“Yeah. At least, Stewart was the nearest I got. I found out he had been looking for someone—a friend’s runaway son—but the kid had scampered home at last and Stewart was going to move on. But when he saw some of the young people around Soho, he didn’t turn that disgusted-but-blind eye to it all that other folks do. No—he wanted to do something about it.” My mouth filled with the sour taste of regret. I should have protected him. I should have recognized the decency for what it was and treasured it, not taken it for granted. “We hung around together for weeks while Stewart was setting up his plans for the Refuge. He was in some kind of talks with the cops or with the social services. I didn’t know the details, and if he’d told me, I’d have said it wouldn’t change anything. But maybe it would. I’d been wrong plenty of times before. And gradually, I came to believe him on my own behalf. I still did my job, but I gave up the weed and pills.”

Jack made a small noise of encouragement.

“Yeah,” I said wryly. “It was hard at first, but luckily I considered food and drink more important than getting high, so I wasn’t too far gone. And I started looking for ways to ease myself out of the business, hoping they wouldn’t notice if and when I moved on. Stewart said he’d get me a proper legal job.”

And we didn’t go beyond friends. I think he was straight, though I never saw him with a girlfriend or boyfriend. But he never made a move on me—it wasn’t like that with us. There were times I wished it had been, when I wanted to give something back for his attention and care. And what else did I have to offer?

“What happened then, Max?”

That night…. “He’d met me after work. I was doing some cash-in-hand cleaning at the club, and we were going to go back to Stewart’s flat for coffee. I sometimes slept over on his couch, though we kept that between us.” Yeah, I’d been hanging out with Stewart instead of walking the streets, fixing up appointments. Like the other hundred-odd nights that I’d been Mr. Fixit in Peck’s world of peddling. Stewart and I were chatting and joking when I should have been out collecting the rest of the night’s money, then crashing on my mattress and wondering when I could steal enough of the takings to buy a fare to somewhere—anywhere—Stewart was going. Then…

“This kid lurched out from nowhere. He had a knife.” Stewart and I had been laughing at my clumsy attempts to do up his winter coat for him—he had his arms full of papers and files, and I was just glad to touch his warm body, his clean, comforting, civilized body, with my skinny fingers, trying to help him out in the cold night, to keep him warm. Then suddenly there was the flash of a blade, ice-white against the purple shadows. I instinctively twisted out of reach even as I turned to see who and what was coming.

“Stewart was knifed four times. One cut an artery, one half severed his neck. Blood everywhere.” All over his new suit and that damn coat. All over the pavement; all over me. “He gargled a bit, but it all bubbled out so damn fast I couldn’t believe it.”

“Shit, Max!”

“I’ve seen someone overdose,” I said. My voice sounded strained and alien. “And another kid die from the cold. In the morning, the life had just frozen away. She was a shell. And when I was new on the streets, I’d hear about kids who got run over because they were sleeping too close to the road. Shit happens and I knew that. But this was different.”

“Of course it was.” Louis looked very pale.

“There were rumors about Peck,” I continued. “That once he killed a kid who argued with him one too many times. Strangled him with his bare hands. Apparently it didn’t take long. And one of my group, Baz… the others told me he used to hassle Peck, wanting to be like him. Just stupid teenage hero worship. But Peck got annoyed and beat him really badly. Baz couldn’t think straight after it, went a little mad.” My heart seemed to be beating very fiercely. “I used to supply Baz just to keep him calm.”

“And Stewart…?”

“I’d never seen anything like it. It was horrific. And by the time I’d started yelling for help, the blood was easing off to a steady flow. That got slower and slower, and I knew he was going. No last dying words or all that shit. Just shock and blood and mess.” I turned away from my friends because I didn’t want to see the disgust and horror I knew would be on their faces, but also because I couldn’t trust the stinging in my eyes not to overspill into tears.

“Did you get a good look at who did it?” Jack’s voice was low.

I chose not to answer that directly. “Everything was too fast, too wild. I could barely focus. I launched myself at the kid, got in a punch, but I doubt I did him any damage apart from a sore belly. Then he kicked me in the nuts and I wasn’t a threat anymore.”

“The police?”

My mind had drifted back to the sounds and smells of that night—the odd coppery tang of fresh blood, the distant whoop of an ambulance siren, the sputtering lights outside the club. My aching balls and the knot of pure fear in my throat. “The paramedics were really quick, you know, considering the neighborhood. But I could see they wouldn’t be patching him up.”

Louis winced at my harsh tone. He was the only guy I’d ever known who could sob and still look okay with it. Which he was doing right now.

Jack’s eyes were wide and fierce, but it didn’t seem his anger was directed at me. “What did the police do? What did you tell them?”

No straight answer from me, again. I could remember the tears on my face that night as if they were still there. “The wound—I just keep seeing the wound. Never seen anything like it.” I rested my head against the back of the armchair and closed my eyes against the memory of such injustice. The way I’d felt then was still vividly, cruelly raw. The stirrings of hope in amongst the cynicism and the sagging self-esteem. I was going to change things, do it right this time. Someone wanted to help me and I had a friend. I was going to live up to what he wanted. But I never got the chance, did I?

“Max!” Jack’s voice snapped me back to the present. “How did you get away from that? You’re not telling me the whole truth.”

“Jack! Take it easy.” Louis turned to stare at his boyfriend.

I met Jack’s gaze. “No, I’m not, you’re right. I got away from that, Jack, because I ran. I saw the lights of the ambulance and heard the police sirens and I ran away.” Silence from everyone else. “I had my tips from the club pot and a couple of Peck’s dues I’d collected earlier in the day but hadn’t yet passed on to him. There was enough to get a late coach out of London. But even by the time I got to Victoria, I wasn’t sure where I was going. I just wanted out.”

“You didn’t wait for the police? You didn’t tell them your story?”

I couldn’t meet Jack’s eyes. “I thought I’d be in too much shit myself. They might have suspected me—they might have asked me what exactly I’d been doing with him. In fact, what I’d been doing for the past year. They would have looked me up on the records.” Where they wouldn’t have found a whole lot of official information. So then would come the awkward questions. “I didn’t dare stay around.”

“So you came to us?”

“Please.” I didn’t know what else to say. “I just didn’t know where else to go—what else to do. I got on the bus to Brighton and I called you. I know running out was a stupid thing to do. Cowardly. But when I saw he was dying, I persuaded myself I couldn’t have helped anyway.”

“And Stewart?”