“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.