The Snake Stone

93

George was sitting out in the little courtyard behind the hospice, his big face tilted to the sun, his eyes closed, with a skein of wool looped around his hands.

He opened his eyes and saw two men standing in front of him.

“Ha!” George boomed, lifting the wool from his lap. “You finds me like old womans now!”

He slipped his huge hands out of the wool and set it gently on the bench beside him.

“I sleeps like an old Greek lady,” he grumbled. He squinted up at his visitors. “What for you bring this rogue here, Yashim efendi? You wants I have bad dreams?”

Yashim smiled. “Murad Eslek, this is George.”

Murad Eslek shook his head. “I know George, efendi. Old bloke. Sells veg at that excuse for a market up the way from here. This ain’t George. Why, this man’s half his age and twice his size.”

George closed his eyes again and laughed weakly.

“Murad has been telling me about the Constantinedes brothers,” Yashim said.

George’s laugh turned into a cough. His eyes bulged, and he thumped his chest.

“What for you cares about such shits?” He spat on the cobbles. “Even Murad Eslek knows. They is bad mens, efendi.”

Eslek cut the air with his hand. “Too true, George. And I get the word that you was fitted up,” he added. “Valuable pitch, right? They made an offer.”

George rubbed his chest. “Those bastards,” he said quietly. “I works that market before they is born.”

“It was your father’s pitch,” Eslek pointed out.

“My grandfather had the farm,” George said. “Old Constantinedes lived nearby. He drink too much, beat his wife. So-my father helps his boys, brings them to the market. But they is bad boys who cheats peoples. My father says-we finds you new pitch. You cheats too many peoples, the peoples don’t come.”

George wiped his eyes with his massive thumb, and spat.

“When my father dies they says: George, it is finish for you now at market. Stay on farm, sell us your vegetables, and we sell to the peoples. But I think, no. These boys cheats the peoples. If I stops the market, why you not think they try to cheat me, too? Of course!”

“No one else asked you for money, then?”

“Money?” George looked surprised. “You asks rich man for money. Not the vegetable man.”

“And the men who attacked you. Did you recognize them?”

“No, efendi. I never sees them before in my whole life.”

Yashim and Eslek exchanged glances. “Leave it to me,” Eslek said. “And don’t worry. When you feel all right you can go back to your pitch. The Constantinedes brothers won’t be bothering you again.”