The Reluctant Assassin

  “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.”

  “And the second?”

  “It is possible that he travels with an Injun maiden. A pretty lass, but dangerous.”

  Lacey Boggs clacked her wooden teeth in rumination. “An Injun in Old Nichol. That fox will hunt herself, so she will.”

  Garrick took a sovereign from his supply. “There is another sov to go with this if you are successful. If not, I will be reclaiming this one from your dead hand. Do you understand me, wench?”

  Lacey Boggs shivered as though suddenly cold, but one hand flicked from below her shawl to claim the coin. “I understands. Find the boy and send word.”

  Garrick took her chin in his bony fingers. “And no gin until the job is done.”

  “No gin. Not even a tot.”

  “Very well, Lacey,” said Garrick, releasing his grip on the woman. “Off to Old Nichol with you. I have business here.”

  Lacey rubbed the fingermarks on her chin. “Is you placing a wager, Mr. Garrick? If so, think twice, sir. Otto Malarkey always fixes the odds so he can’t lose.”

  Garrick patted his coat and trouser legs, checking the blades concealed in secret pockets all about his person.

  “Even the great King Otto can’t fix these odds. He has started a fight that he cannot win. So if I was you, I would quit this place in case the blood flows onto the street.”

  Lacey Boggs hitched up her petticoats as though the blood already pooled about her feet. “I am making myself scarce, sir. I am an employed woman with a job to do.”

  Garrick watched her go, and he knew that the news of a bounty for Riley would sweep through the city faster than cholera through a rookery.

  If I know my boy, he will follow the pattern of his previous escape attempts. Riley will find himself a bolt-hole, with a view to making a run for it when his trail has cooled. In this case, he will run for the future, and there are only two doors leading that way. One is in the basement of Half Moon Street, but I could be there waiting for him; or I could have simply dismantled the apparatus, so he will give it a few days, then make for Bedford Square. And that’s where I shall be, just as soon as I have myself a little chat with Otto Malarkey.

  Inside the Hidey-Hole the revelries continued until the wee hours, when Otto Malarkey called a halt by abruptly losing his temper, as he did, regular as clockwork, just before sunrise, urging anyone who did not wish to bear a stripe of his riding crop to find themselves a hammock out of his sight.

  “Except you, Mr. Farley,” he called to the elderly tattoo artist. “I would have you update my price list as I doze.” It was a testament to the man’s tolerance for pain that he intended to sleep while Farley labored over his chest tattoo.

  The enormous room cleared slowly as the weary shuffled toward their resting places. Malarkey snagged a bottle of brandy from the grip of an unconscious sailor on the floor and staggered to Farley’s corner.

  “How now, my faithful artist,” he said, dropping into the tattoo lounger, which creaked alarmingly under his enormous bulk. “I need you to update my price list. Add a pound to every service. After all, I am king now.”

  Farley was tired and his fingers were cramped, yet he knew better than to complain. He provided a valuable service to the Rams, but Malarkey’s moods were unpredictable and a man would do well not to visit his dark side.

  “One pound it is,” he said, tapping the ink bottles into a pleasing straight line. “Some will be straightforward enough; the same as previous ones won’t need touching. But may I ’umbly suggest leaving the denomination as shillings? Then all’s I need to do is diddle with the numbers a bit. Save a little on the ink and needles.”

  What went unsaid was that Farley’s method would cut down the needle time.

  Malarkey uncorked the bottle with his teeth and took a long draft. “As you wish, Farley. It is of little matter to me, hardy as I am. Your needle is like a pinprick compared to the many rapier punctures I suffered on the prison island of Little Saltee.”

  That’s because it is a pinprick, Farley wanted to say, but he thought better of it.

  “Enough blabber, and on with it,” said Malarkey. “I needs me sleep. Rest is vital for a shining head of hair. Rest and the touch of the fleece. That’s what keeps my mane glossy.”

  Malarkey was vain about his hair. It was his weakness, and too many people knew it, in Farley’s opinion.

  “Rest and the fleece, boss. You see to your hair and let me work on this chest. When you wake it will be done.”

  Malarkey belched almost contentedly, allowing his muscles to relax, then jumped as Farley’s needle made its first puncture. It had been a long time since he’d taken ink, and it was a mite more painful than he remembered.

  “Apologies, boss. The sting will ease soon enough.”

  Malarkey relaxed once more. Jumping and a-twisting was not a wise idea when taking the ink.

  A cove’s T could end up a J.

  Farley had spoken true, and soon the needle pricks faded to a dull buzz. Malarkey felt his entire chest assume the numbness that often went with extreme drunkenness. Within minutes he felt at peace with the world.

  The surrounding hubbub faded, to be replaced by loud snoring and the occasional squeal of night terror from the upper levels.

  I love this time of day, thought Malarkey.

  He was on the point of slipping away when he felt the tattooist’s needle slide in uncommonly deep, like an icicle perilously close to his heart. The Ram king’s eyes flew open, and one hand raised itself to knuckle Farley on the crown for his carelessness; but when he tore the fleece from his head, Malarkey saw that it was not the decrepit Farley bent over him but the assassin Albert Garrick, in full evening wear, including a heavy velvet cape that rippled in the low light like the fur of a satisfied panther.

  “Have you lost your senses?” Malarkey shouted.

  “Keep your voice down, Malarkey,” said Garrick, twisting the needle a fraction. “Or you may startle me into popping your heart like a rancid bag of pus.”

  From his position, Malarkey could not see the tattooist. “Where is Farley? Have you murdered the old geezer?” he asked quietly.

  “Not murdered,” replied Garrick. “I etherized him is all, and rolled him under the stairs. I am not an animal.”

  “What you are is a dead man, Garrick,” hissed the king of the Rams.

  Garrick smiled and his teeth were like corn husks. “I would be a dead man already if you had had your way. Isn’t that the truth of it, Your Majesty?”

  Malarkey paled slightly as it occurred to him that if Garrick was here, then his murder boys were more than likely getting their eyeballs examined by mud crabs in the Thames.

  “It was a contract from a valued customer. Business is all.”

  “I appreciate that,” said Garrick, who had surmised as much. “But I need to know the name of this customer whose value outweighs the risks of crossing swords with yours truly.”

  “That’s a name you ain’t extracting from me,” said Malarkey, who had borne terrible tortures before now.

  Garrick sighed, as
if it were a tragedy how people drove him to commit acts that were against his nature. “Let me tell you a story before you makes up your mind proper. It is the story of Samson and Delilah. Samson was a great Israelite warrior who laid low all before him, a little like your good self, Otto. But then the treacherous Delilah chopped off his precious hair and drained his power. It’s a brief story, but I think you get the point.” With every phrase, Garrick slipped the cold needle in a whisper further toward Malarkey’s heart.

  Malarkey’s face was drenched with sweat, but he held firm. “Shave my head then, you devil. You will get no name from me.”

  Garrick expected this resistance from a man of Malarkey’s reputation, but he had another card up his sleeve.

  “Personally I think that whole head-shaving business is a euphemism for stealing the man’s power, but I know how fond you are of your gorgeous head of hair, so my threat to you is that if you do not tell me who put the black spot on my head, then I will . . .”

  “You will shave my head. This is old news, Garrick.”

  Garrick made a noise that could be described as a titter. “No. I will burn your scalp with my little bottle of acid, so that no hair will ever grow on your crown again. And then, in one month, when the men have bellyache from laughing, I will return in the dead of night and kill you.”

  Malarkey’s lip twitched. “That is a powerful threat. A man would have to be soft to ignore a threat like that.”

  “It makes you think, does it not?”

  Malarkey squinted past the brim of Garrick’s top hat, searching for the magician’s eyes. “Perhaps, I am thinking, Garrick did not bring his acid, and this whole affair is bluff.”

  “Well, then,” responded Garrick, a sickly glow emanating from his teeth, “at the very least you shall die in this chair, and I shall tattoo something tasteless on your barrel chest.”

  Malarkey was bent but not broken, and Garrick realized from his new knowledge of psychology and interrogation techniques gleaned from Felix Sharp’s studies that a proud man must be given an out: a way to supply the information needed that left him with some dignity.