“You’ve got a feather in your hair, Mr…?” He let the question hang.
“Fellows.” I presented a hand. “Jacob Fellows, of Bow Street.”
McGraw slowly nodded his head. He ignored my hand.
“Formerly of Bow Street, if I’ve heard right,” he said. “Unless there is another Jacob Fellows, maybe one not thrown out of Bow Street.”
So began our game. No different from all the games of men. Words for advantage. Words for power.
“You’re right. I’m being punished for misbehaving. You can say I’m a specialist at misbehaving.” I smiled. McGraw didn’t.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
“Misbehaving,” I replied.
“Get out!” McGraw motioned to his dispatch officer. The young man put hard hands on my shoulders and tried to leverage a push to get me through the doors. I ignored the little fella.
“I heard you could get me a deal on gemstones. Fine diamonds and such,” I said.
McGraw shoved the dispatch officer aside and put his own forceful hands on me. I let him duck walk me to the front door.
“Six o’clock. Meet me at Weeks Café,” McGraw whispered and shoved me out into the street.
“And lose that bloody shirt!”
So I found myself with time to kill. I took in a meal of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. I wandered to the tube station and hired a locker for my lockbox, putting all those cards and scotch and most of my savings under lock and key. I strung the key to the trigger guard of my pistol for safe keeping and walked out onto the station platform.
People come and go and come and go. To and fro. The tube station is new. All the brass is shiny and reflective despite the hands and bodies that press and lean and shift. The steam engines of the tram belch a sulphurous miasma upon every arrival and departure. City managers spent a sultan’s fortunes on low-light flowers, and perfumes, and agents and myriad counter scents. Anything to beat the foul sulphur rot. In practice, the new scents just add a layer on top of the sulphuric belches. All smells present and accounted for. Some days smell like sulphur and sage. Some like sulphur and roses. Today was sulphur and ambergris. It bled into my new shirt, my old jacket, into the cuffs and frills of all the dapper commuters returning to the beautiful country from their posh jobs. I took the measure of them, and went on my way.
Weeks Café specialized in pretentious coffees and teas. I ordered a Snap Dragon Delight, whatever the hell that was. A young barista, dressed precariously in a blacksmith’s apron and chemist goggles, squeezed a ball of leaves into a mesh pouch. He then gently placed the pouch in my cup and blasted it with a copper steam pipe connected to a bustling apparatus that occupied the entire north wall of the establishment. Pipes shook and rattled and soon the young man was consumed by a cloud of steam. He eventually emerged with my cup. During the assault, the pouch had burst and everything, barista, cup, saucer, was covered in beaded moisture.
“Make sure you let that cool, sir,” the barista said.
Heat radiated from the cup. I could no longer see the young man’s eyes through the precipitation of his goggles. At some point in the process, my sinuses cleared for the first time since winter. I took a table and blew on my cup.
Officer McGraw entered the establishment. He’d changed to plain clothes for our chat. Being inconspicuous I guess. A man trying to hide is unbalanced by spectacle, which meant it was time for me to be difficult.
McGraw spotted me and walked to my table with long straight strides. His was the walk of a man with purpose. No tea, no coffee, no looking about, straight to the confrontation. I shoved a stool out with my foot and beckoned McGraw to sit. He disregarded the seat and loomed large and imposing over my little tea table.
“What do you think you have?” He asked.
I casually took a sip of my tea and was instantly overtaken with burns on my lips and tongue. Hot as bloody hell! I wiped my chin and was happy not to see dead skin and blood.
“You know what I have. Take a seat, mate. Order a cuppa. You’re making a spectacle.”
McGraw took a seat.
“Your shirt is a spectacle,” he replied. No point in a retort, the shirt was indefensible. I reached into my pocket and pulled his Boschon card.
“Bow Street knows about your cousin. We also know about the diamonds. No need to explain, mate. Innocent or not this card paints you like Dorian Grey.”
“Is that the only copy?”
“Yeah,” I lied.
“What makes you think I won’t just reach over and take it from you?” He said and puffed up his chest.
“Look into my eyes.”
He looked.
“Now down my chest.”
Oddly enough, he complied.
“Now down my arm, my hand, the one in my jacket pocket. What do you think that bulge is?”
“Give me two guesses?” He asked.
“Sure.”
“Your lumpy biscuit.”
“Give it a second guess?” I cocked the hammer of my Engholm. The click was distinct and audible even in the café bustle. The waiter who’d come to take McGraw’s order turned and suddenly found someplace better to be, somewhere far away from the big ugly men. McGraw gave me his best tough guy grin. Bloody filth.
“So what’s the offer? What does that card cost?”
“Costs nothing, mate. I need friends, not currency.”
McGraw’s face turned red with frustration. Some men have no stomach for clever words and riddles.
“You want me to be your friend? That’s it?”
“Sure. Of course, all my friends owe me favors.”
“Listen, fats. I’ll have it in plain English. What do you want?”
“If I had a friend, a good friend, he’d come to my home with gifts. I love Swan Lake, particularly scenes with the lovely Swan Princess. Call me a fan.”
McGraw caught on. He looked around real careful to make sure we had no listeners. He leaned in and gave me his library voice.
“You’re mad, fats,” he said. “I read your file before coming here. You murdered an old man. Claimed his clockworks came to life and did the deed. Wonkers.”
“Not all his clockworks. Just one,” I whispered back.
“And you want me to lift this clockwork from a secure location? Past Metro guards?”
“Yes.”
McGraw tilted back in his stool. I attempted another sip of my fine Indian magma.
“I don’t get the benefit,” he said. “You’re a dead man, a hangman’s place holder. I don’t know what favor got you bailed out, but making the Swan disappear won’t save your case. She’s not anywhere near the best evidence against you. You’ve got Metro witnesses placing you smack in the middle of mayhem. You’re the only living man near a dead man and a room of absolute nutter carnage. Have no delusions friend, you will swing for this.”
“Maybe I’ve unfinished business with the Swan. Something I want to wrap up before my big day.”
McGraw stopped smiling and gave me a long regarding look, like he was trying to spot the crazy on me.
“Alright, if you’re playing the fool, then I’ll give you a fool’s bargain. The Swan for my card.”
“And all the pieces found near her.”
McGraw nodded. I took my gun hand out of my jacket pocket and we shook on the deal.
“Come find me at the Piece Work Inn when you’re done. When will you have her?”
“Soon, fats. Real soon.”
McGraw got up and left in the same deliberate point A to B line he’d entered with.
I abandoned my molten cup. Our waiter was talking to a manager and from the way he glanced over at me, I’m sure the conversation was not complimentary. I’m not an expert in the finer points of law, but I imagine armed conflict in a tea shop violates the terms of my bail. So I left.