The Thousand Faces of Night - Jack Higgins [12]
Marlowe sighed deeply and unclenched his fist. 'Your eyes are too good, Papa. One of these days they're going to get you into trouble.'
The old man shrugged. 'I've been in trouble before.' He held out a match in cupped hands. 'How about you, son?'
Marlowe looked into the wise, humorous face and liked what he saw. 'Nothing I couldn't handle, Papa.'
The old man's eyes roved briefly over his massive frame. 'I can imagine. It would take a good man to put you down, but there's another kind of trouble that isn't so easy to handle.'
Marlowe raised an eyebrow. 'The law?' He smiled and shook his head. 'Don't worry, Papa. They won't come knocking at your door tonight.' He raised his arm. 'I can explain this. I was asleep in the back of a truck. Woke up to find some bloke going through my pockets. He pulled a knife and ripped my sleeve. I smacked his jaw and dropped off the truck. That's how I arrived here.'
Magellan threw back his head and laughed. 'Heh, I bet that fella doesn't wake up till the truck gets to Newcastle.'
Marlowe sat down in a chair and laughed with him. He felt easier now and safer. 'It's a good job we were near here,' he said. 'I didn't even know Litton was on the map.'
Magellan nodded. 'It's a quiet little place. Only seven or eight hundred people live around here.'
Marlowe grinned. 'Seems to me it's getting pretty lively for a quiet little place. What about the character I tossed out on his ear?'
The old man frowned. 'Kennedy? He was working for me until a few days ago as a driver. Now he's with Inter-Allied Trading.'
Marlowe nodded. 'I noticed the fancy yellow van when I came in. Who's this bloke O'Connor? The big boss?'
The old man snorted and fire glinted in his eyes. 'He likes to think he is, but I remember him when he was small. Very small. He had an old truck and did general haulage work. The war was the making of him. He wasn't too fussy about what he carried and always seemed to be able to get plenty of petrol when other people couldn't. Now he has twenty or thirty trucks.'
'And doesn't like competition,' Marlowe said. 'What's he trying to do? Put you out of business?'
'He offered to buy me out, but I told him I wasn't interested. The smallholding on its own isn't enough to give us a good living. I have three Bedford trucks as well. Once a month we deliver coal round the village and the outlying farms. The rest of the time we do general haulage work. I've formed a little co-operative between seven or eight market gardeners near here. They're all in a pretty small way. Together we can make it pay by using my trucks for transportation and selling in bulk.'
Marlowe was beginning to get interested. 'Even so, there can't be a fortune in that, Papa,' he said. 'What's O'Connor after?'
The old man hastened to explain. 'It isn't the haulage work he's interested in. It's the produce itself. You see about eighteen months ago he took over a large fruit-and-vegetable wholesalers in Barford Market. Since then he's bought out another and purchased a controlling interest in two more. Now he virtually controls prices. If you want to sell, you sell through him.'
Marlowe whistled softly. 'Very neat, and legal too. What's he got against you?'
The old man shrugged. 'He doesn't like my little cooperative. He prefers to deal with all the small men individually. That way he can get the stuff at rock-bottom prices and re-sell in Birmingham and other large cities at an enormous profit.'
'Hasn't anybody tried to stand up to him?' Marlowe asked.
Magellan nodded. 'Naturally, but O'Connor is a powerful man and Barford is a very small town. He can exert influence in many ways. Besides his more subtle methods there are others. A gang of young hooligans started a fight the other day in the crowded market and a stall was wrecked in the process. Of course, O'Connor knew nothing about it, but the stallholder now toes the