The Reluctant Assassin (W.A.R.P. 1) - Page 34

“And the good news?” asked a Ram in the front row of the throng.

“The good? The good is that the bout cannot technically be concluded, so all bets are off.” Malarkey smiled broadly. “Which is good news. For your king, which is me.”

A few of the Rams grumbled, but not too loudly, and Malarkey knew that his luck would not be questioned. All in all, it was the best possible result for the Ram king: his reputation was intact, his purse no lighter, and Mr. Charismo had been in a much better mood than expected, considering. A good day’s graft all around.

• • •

Farley finished the simple Ram motif on Riley’s shoulder and swabbed it with medicinal alcohol.

“Don’t pick at the scab,” he advised, “or you’ll end up with scarring, which makes my design look bad.”

Riley could not work out what had happened. “Is my friend safe? Is the fighting done?”

Farley placed a clean rag across the tattoo. “The fight has been suspended. A client has expressed an interest in meeting you, as I thought he might.”

Riley frowned. There were politics at work here.

“So, you sent word to this gent? It was you that saved us, Mr. Farley?”

Farley tied the knot tightly. “Quiet now, boy. I took a few bob for sending a message, that’s all.”

Riley touched the bandage gingerly. “Who is this client? What would he want with us?”

Farley carefully and methodically capped his inks and replaced them in a wooden case.

“This client is a most singular individual,” he said. “A genius in many fields, he is, and a generous benefactor to those who keep him informed. As to what he wants with you, well, that’s a question he will answer in person.”

“Any words of wisdom for me, Mr. Farley? Regarding this mysterious client and how to keep him sweet?”

Farley smiled and his teeth were remarkably white inside wizened lips. “You are a smart one, boy. That is possibly the best question to have asked, when there was only time for one.” Farley thought while he wiped his needle. “I would advise you to keep yourself interesting. Be amusing in your conversation. Mr. Charismo is unlikely to send you back here for as long as he finds your company scintillating.”

Riley stood on the stool and caught sight of Chevie, who was terrorizing the Rams trying to restrain her.

Scintillating, he thought. That shouldn’t prove too difficult.

Then the name mentioned by Farley penetrated his brain.

Mr. Charismo? Surely not Tibor Charismo, the most famous man in all of England. What was his involvement in this whole affair?

Whatever Mr. Charismo’s intentions toward their persons, they were sure to be less lethal than those of either Albert Garrick or Otto Malarkey.

Perhaps we will have a moment’s respite. Perhaps even a bite to eat.

Riley waved at Chevie and smiled encouragingly.

Our situation is about to improve, he wanted to tell her. Be of good cheer.

But Chevie was not in good cheer and would not be for some time; for, lying in the palm of one hand, were the remains of the Timekey, which had been smashed utterly by Otto Malarkey’s surprise blow.

THE ORIENT THEATRE. HOLBORN. LONDON. 1898

Before quitting the Orient in search of the Rams, Garrick checked that his cashbox was still hidden in a steel safe below the conductor’s podium in the orchestra pit. It would be a galling shame to return after dumping the bodies of Percival and his cronies in the Thames to realize they had raided the stash before his arrival.

Garrick loaded all three bodies onto a cart in the yard and made a quick trip across to the low-lying marshes on the Isle of Dogs to lighten his load.

More food for the fish, he thought as the macabre packages slid below the murky waters.

And now, with the day’s donkey work completed, he could attend to more important business. Specifically, to find out who had hired the Rams to do him in. There was one man who would surely be able to answer that question, and Garrick knew precisely where that man would be.

The Hidey-Hole. Is that not how the Battering Rams referred to their infamous club?

As if it were hidden. As if every bobby in London were not perfectly aware of its exact address. As if constables did not extend their routes by miles simply to avoid going anywhere near the Rams’ headquarters.

Yes, the un-hidden Hidey-Hole. The next port of call for the Red Glove.

The sun was already long past the spire when Garrick purchased a mug of coffee from his regular man on the tip of Oxford Street, but his palate had been educated by twenty-first-century coffee, and he judged this mug as bilge water not fit for the Irish. He flung it to the cobbles and vowed to take his custom elsewhere in the future.

The coffee soured his mood briefly, but the memory of his artful disposal of the three Rams who had violated his beloved theater cheered him somewhat.

I behaved righteously, he realized. Bad men came to murder me and I defeated them.

Self-defense was unusual for Garrick, and he allowed a grim and righteous anger to build in his breast.

An eye for an eye, sayeth the scriptures, thought the magician, deciding to ignore the New Testament for now, as Turn the other cheek did not suit his argument.

In daylight hours the Haymarket was little more than a rowdy thoroughfare, with an uncommonly high number of gin houses; but the rising of the moon had a more alarming effect on the tiny borough than it would have had on one cursed with lycanthropy.

First came the bonfires, plonked directly onto the pavement, and no sooner lit than surrounded by half a dozen ruffianly individuals, pulling on pints of gin and passing around pungent cigars. Then, drawn perhaps by the bonfires’ smoke signals, came the dandies and the players, and a veritable brigade of ne’er-do-wells, all destined to embroil themselves in heavy drinking, illegal betting, and cardsharping before the night was out.

Garrick generally considered himself too fine a gentleman to frequent the Haymarket after dusk, but needs must; and if he was to have the contract on his head lifted, he would have to visit the king in his broken-down palace.

By the time he arrived at Rogues’ Walk, the corner was already six deep in night owls, with a glut of brawn outside the Hidey-Hole’s double doors as patrons lined up for a ringside view of the Battering Rams’ infamous fighting ring, which on any given night could feature exotic warriors, dogs, roosters, and even, on one notorious occasion, a dwarf and an Australian miniature bear.

This is not the time to speak with Otto Malarkey, Garrick realized. Even a man of my talents could not hope to penetrate such an army. But my moment will come.

Garrick was distracted from his task by the sight of a sometime stooge of his sauntering toward the bonfires, then begging nips of gin from the lowlifes warming their hands.

Lacey Boggs. My West End songbird.

Lacey Boggs’s con was to sing for tipsy gents after the theater while her accomplice dipped into their pockets. The dodge had not been pulling in the revenue it once did after Lacey passed a summer at Her Majesty’s pleasure and came out of the clink minus her teeth and plus a set of wooden dentures.

Garrick took Lacey by the elbow and propelled her beneath a gas streetlight, so that her head bonged against the pole.

“Here, what’s all this rough stuff?” she objected. “I’ll ’ave your hand for a spittoon, mate.”

The bluster was replaced by terror when Lacey realized exactly whose hand she had just threatened.

“Oh, not you, Mr. Garrick. I never meant you. Be rough all you like, I know there’s no harm in you.”

Garrick tightened his grip on Lacey’s elbow. “There’s harm in me, Lacey Boggs. Gallons of harm and hurt, a-waiting to be spilled onto some poor unfortunate.”

Lacey smiled, and Garrick saw that she had taken to dying her wooden choppers with lime. “Not me, Mr. Garrick. Ain’t I always done as asked to the letter? Who was it that located that French count for you? The one what was brutally m

urdered . . .” Lacey’s eyes went wide and she covered her mouth with her hand. “I never meant that you had nothing to do with that. A fine gent like yourself . . . Coincidence, surely.”

Garrick had no patience for this bleating woman. “Calm yourself, Lacey. The harm in me is not for you. I have a job, that’s all. Do you remember my boy, Riley?”

Lacey’s face muscles relaxed. “Aww. I remembers him. Cute little beggar with the wonky eyeballs. Suffers with the nervosity a bit, I’d say.”

“That’s him. I need you to find him. Employ whomever you need. Have old Ernest send a pigeon to the theater if I cannot be found.”

Lacey sniffed, as though she could smell a sovereign. “London is a big place, Mr. Garrick. Three million souls big. Could you give a girl a clue?”

“I shall be generous. Two clues I have for you. Firstly, Riley may fly to the Old Nichol, for he is well aware of the abhorrence I hold in my heart for that disease pit.”

Tags: Eoin Colfer W.A.R.P.
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