“Apologies,” said Charismo. “Sometimes Barnum forgets his place.”
Chevie jerked herself upright in the chair. “Nice desk. Who gave you that? The spirits of cheap and vulgar?”
“I shall not be manipulated to anger,” said Charismo. “The great Charismo rises above base emotions.”
“How about Terry Carter? What does he do?”
Charismo toyed with a letter opener in the shape of a dagger. Or perhaps it was a dagger in the shape of a dagger. “Terry Carter is dead. He died almost thirty years ago, when I arrived here.”
Chevie noticed that Riley was not reacting to any of this and seemed to be humming a Beatles song.
“What did you do to the boy?”
Charismo waved his fingers as if to say Hardly anything. “Oh, him. I gave him a few drops of sodium thiopental and a little deadly nightshade. I favor it as a mix. You speak the truth and then die. Don’t worry about the lad. Riley will drop off to sleep and never wake up, which is about the best way to go in Victorian London. You’re going to adore it.”
Chevie struggled against her bonds, but they had been tied by a man who tied things up as part of his job description.
“The great Tibor Charismo. You’re nothing but a common murderer.”
Charismo seemed genuinely offended. “No. Absolutely not. I am the greatest human being since Leonardo da Vinci, whom I suspect may also have been a WARP veteran. I write, I compose, I see. In the twentieth century I was nothing, a Mob banker. Here, I am the darling of high society. Why on God’s green earth would I ever go back?”
“I see how it could happen,” said Chevie. “You knew the Mob would track little Terry down eventually. No matter how many of them you put away with your testimony, there would always be more wiseguys. But in Victorian London, you could really be somebody.”
“Exactly,” said Charismo. “And do you know how? I have a photographic memory. Everything I ever read, saw, or even heard, I remember forever. Simple as that.”
“Genius,” said Chevie, half meaning it.
Charismo rose to his feet. “Queen Victoria herself listens to my advice. As soon as the Feds told me I was moving to Victorian London, I read everything I could about any subject I thought might be useful. I know things about world politics, sporting events, simple inventions, fashion trends. It’s a gold mine.”
Chevie took a few breaths to calm herself. “Okay, Terry, listen to me. Just let us go. Give the kid an antidote. Don’t become a murderer on top of everything else.”
“Become a murderer?” said Charismo laughing. “This is Victorian London. Even with my gifts, you have to carve your way to the top, or hire a big strong Barnum to do it for you. When I found Barnum, he was bleeding to death in Newgate prison; now he is loyal to me unto the grave.”
“Really?”
“No. I hired him in the pub, but I plan to use the Newgate story in my memoirs.”
“You don’t have to kill the boy, Charismo. I’m the law here. He’s just a kid.”
Charismo smiled, perching on the edge of the desk. “Oh, he’s the one I need to kill most of all. You still haven’t put it together fully, Agent, have you?”
“Oh, I think I understand most of it,” said Chevie. “It’s a pretty basic tale of human greed. Little Terry Carter decides he likes it in the Victorian era and so hires Albert Garrick to cut any ties to the future, specifically Agent Riley and his family.”
Charismo showed no remorse. “That was not my fault. Bill Riley was not supposed to marry anyone. I was meant to be his priority; but, no—Agent Riley decides to fall in love, so I had no alternative but to unleash Garrick on his entire family. No loose ends.”
Chevie looked at him. “But you needed Bill Riley’s Timekey?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Charismo. “Garrick delivered it to me without ever suspecting what it was. How could he? All programmed and ready to suck Bill back to the twentieth century—the twenty-first now, I suppose. I have it secured safely, just in case I need to escape this time zone. There will always be medical procedures—chemotherapy, for example—that I may need to avail myself of. That is the only reason I have not disassembled the portals. Of course, I only recently found out where the portals were.”
“Well, poor little Mob banker Terry wouldn’t be told the locations. Information like that would be strictly need-to-know.”
“Precisely. On the night I arrived, they hustled me out of there with a sack over my head. Can you believe it? In my condition?”
When he said the word condition, Charismo touched his mask lightly, and Chevie wondered again what precisely was under there.
“So, even with Agent Riley out of the way, you still needed to find Charles Smart and whatever portals there might be; otherwise you could never be sure that they wouldn’t come after you.”
“The alternative was keeping a low profile,” explained Charismo. “And what was the point in doing that?”
“Yeah,” said Chevie. “Why be a nobody in two centuries?”
“You’re doing awfully well so far,” said Charismo coldly, adjusting his devil’s mask. “Would you like to continue? Or should I kill you now?”
“It takes a while to build up your funds, but as soon as you can afford it you cultivate a relationship with Otto Malarkey, because only the Battering Rams have the network you need to find Charles Smart and the portals.”
“All I had was a sketch of Smart, which I drew from memory, and a description of a basement with a bed mounted on a metal plate. Not much to go on.”
Chevie took over the narrative. “It took years, but eventually the Rams found that Smart was actually living in this century in Bedford Square. And they followed him to Half Moon Street.”
“I kept him under surveillance, as you Feds might say, until I was satisfied that Smart was the only one using the portals. No one was looking for him or coming for me.”
“And you wanted to keep it that way. You wanted sole control of the wormhole, so Charles Smart had to go. And that’s when you contacted Garrick again, to finish the job he began a decade ago.”
“Yes. After all, my freedom to evolve was at stake.”
Charismo leaned forward and parted Chevie’s hair with his letter opener. “I had forgotten how much effort it is speaking with my fellow Americans. So confrontational.” “You made one mistake, Terry,” said Chevie.
“Oh, I don’t think so. After all, you are prostrate before me, as is the entire city.”
“Garrick. You should never have hired him. He can’t be controlled.”
Charismo covered his smug smile with a kerchief. “Believe me, Garrick has been controlled into an early grave. Otto Malarkey has seen to that. He was the last direct connection between me and the future.”
“Until we came along.”
“Otto was supposed to kill anyone who arrived at either portal, but it is in his nature to try to squeeze a few extra sovereigns from every situation. Luckily I have a man in the Rams who is loyal to my gold, and he informed me there was activity in the Half Moon house. Can you imagine my surprise when one of the fugitives from Half Moon Street bore a striking resemblance to William Riley? It must be a coincidence, I told myself, and I almost believed it, until the boy himself revealed to me that his father was an FBI agent. So young Riley here is the only wild card in this game, and he is, as you can see, not really playing anymore.”
Charismo clapped his hands, which seemed to be something of a trademark. “And so, the game is over, and Charismo has triumphed.”
Riley moaned and spasmed in his chair.
“Come on, Carter!” said Chevie. “Cure the boy! Let him go. What harm can he do to you?”
“None whatsoever. Little Riley is harmless. And soon that will be a permanent condition.”
Chevie’s pulse pounded in her forehead. “That boy idolized you, and you’ve killed him.”
Charismo fluttered his kerchief. “Well, you know what they say? A person should never meet his heroes. And I ha
ven’t killed him yet, he’s simply dreaming. The poison is still in his stomach. He won’t die for hours.”
Riley was half-dreaming, and he would have loved to lose himself entirely to slumber, but something was glinting in his eye. The boy squinted, attempting to focus, but he could see nothing, except the small shining object on Chevie’s finger. It was blurred and surrounded by a golden nimbus, until Charismo moved in front of the window and blocked the sunlight, bringing the golden object into relief.
It was a horseshoe ring.
A horseshoe ring. There was a man with a horseshoe ring. Mr. Carter.
In his dream state Riley was closer to his visions; he remembered that his father had protected the man wearing this ring, and this was enough to wake him slightly, just in time to hear Charismo say, “That was not my fault. Bill Riley was not supposed to marry. I ordered Garrick to kill Agent Riley and his precious family, no loose ends.”
Bill Riley, thought Riley groggily. My dad.
Riley could not fathom the circumstances, but he had heard a confession, and the ring made him believe it was the truth.
With superhuman effort, he breathed himself back to the surface of consciousness. It took several moments, but finally he had the energy to act. Riley dragged himself from the chair and flailed at Charismo, striking out clumsily.
“Oh, please,” tutted Charismo. “This is embarrassing. I am embarrassed for both of you, really.”
He placed a hand on Riley’s forehead and tipped him over backward. Riley fell awkwardly, knocking over a marble-topped table and sending the Farspeak skittering to the end of its wire.