"Gèsu Cristo," groaned Guido out of a lost childhood.
Larkin's face remained dead. But he laid down his cigarette and said slowly and clearly: "I told you to run along home. This time I mean it, daddy-o."
Kintyre bunched his muscles—only for an instant, then he remembered that he must be at ease, at ease.
"I'm beginning to wonder what you really were doing last weekend, Terry," he said.
There was hardly a visible movement. He heard the click, and the switchblade poised on the bench, aimed at his throat.
"End of the line," Larkin told him without rancor. "On your way. If you know what's good for you, you won't come back."
"Do you know," murmured Kintyre, "I think this really is a case for the police. Ever hear of citizen's arrest?"
Guido's wind rattled in his gullet.
Larkin's blade spurted upward. It was an expert, underhand sticking motion; Kintyre could have died with hardly a noise, in that booth designed not to be looked into from outside.
From the moment the steel emerged, he had realized he was going to get cut. That was half the technique of facing a knife. His last remark had been absolutely sincere: the law needed Larkin a prisoner, now. His left arm moved simultaneously with Larkin's right. The blade struck his forearm and furrowed keenly through the sleeve. It opened the skin beneath, but little more, for Kintyre was already lifting the arm, violently, as the follow-through slid Larkin's wrist across. He smacked the knife hand back against the booth wall.