“In there, to arrest Michael Badger.” Cobb raised his stick and pointed it at a spot below the man’s chin.
“Michael Badger ain’t in there, so bugger off!”
“I think I’ll just see fer myself.”
“I’d advise against it, Consta-”
No further syllable emerged because Cobb’s truncheon had poked its snout well into the bruiser’s voice box and sent him gagging against the bar. Cobb pushed open the door and stepped brazenly into the gambling den. “Where’s Michael Badger?” he boomed.
A dozen men, crouched in a circle around a pair of dice and wads of wagered dollars, looked up, their eyes removed from the tumbling and fickle bones for the first time in an hour. They froze in place there, as if the mental effort and emotional anguish demanded by the game had left them disoriented and momentarily petrified. Finally, one of them, whom Cobb recognized as Burly Bettman, stood up and declared, “That son-of-a-bitch deadbeat ain’t here, and if he was, I’d rip off his legs and bash his brains out with ’em.”
Bettman either owned the Tinker’s Dam or had it by squatter’s rights.
“Badger owes ya money, I take it,” Cobb said.
“More’n thirty bucks. The stupid bugger don’t know when to quit.”
“When did you see him last?”
“He was in here Saird’y night. Tried ta sucker me inta double or nothin’. I told him ta pay up by last night or I’d double the debt and then take it outta his hide slice by slice.”
“Okay, you fellas c’n go back to losin’ yer shirts,” Cobb said. “But I’d check them funny dice if I was you.”
Cobb went looking for Rossiter. He found him beside the cellar door, standing over a prone figure lying motionless in the grass.
“What the hell-”
“You said to conk the bugger,” Rossiter protested.
“Yeah, and I told ya Badger was six feet tall with a bushel of orange hair. This guy’s five feet and bald. I hope ya haven’t killed him.”
“But he come bustin’ up outta that doorway like he’d seen a ghost.”
A sudden groan suggested that the victim was still alive. Cobb bent down and turned him face up. “Christ! It’s Nestor Peck, one of my snitches.”
“So it is,” Rossiter said, more surprised than concerned.
“He must’ve heard my voice in the barroom and skedaddled. The last person he’d want to be seen with in this territory is a constable.”
“We just gonna leave him here?” Rossiter said, stifling a yawn.
“Yeah. You hit him in the one spot he can’t be hurt. But I gotta see him and my other snitches first thing in the mornin’ to put the word out about Badger. If he’s been holin’ up in one of these shacks around here, he’s long gone by now. His name’s mud in these parts, and pretty soon he’s gonna have the whole town snappin’ at his arse.”
Nestor groaned again and tried to open his eyes.
“We better get a move on,” Cobb said.
Rossiter agreed.
Cobb staggered into his parlour, flopped into an easy chair, and let his boots drop off. “Missus Cobb!” he shouted.
Dora came in from the kitchen, an apron tied around her nightdress. Her parabolic curves consumed the doorway. “Shoutin’ may get you respect in the dives you free-kwent, but it don’t travel far in this place.”
“I was just askin’ if you was home, luv.”
“Askers don’t beller.”
“Glad ya got home just the same.”
“Darn glad to be home. I’ve had one helluva day.”
“Don’t tell me about it, please.”
“I wasn’t plannin’ to.”
“The kids got me supper. They’re gettin’ better at it-”
“Is that a complaint, Mister Cobb?”
Just then Delia called from the kitchen.
“What the heck’s she doin’ up?” Cobb said, happy to redirect the conversation.
“School’s out and it’s summer, ya old fart. They ain’t little kids no more.”
“Ya mean ta say Fabian’s still outside?”
“Yer deed-duction is ah-cute tonight, constable.”
“He’s playing hide-and-go-seek with the boys,” Delia said from the kitchen doorway, her tone part reproof and part envy.
As if on cue, the front door was flung open and ten-year-old Fabian stumbled into the room, flushed and excited.
“What’s happened?” Dora said.
“We saw a bogeyman!” Fabian said, his pale eyes delightedly wide and eager to calculate their effect of his words on the elders.
“Don’t be daft,” Cobb said.
“But we did, Dad. Butch and me were hiding in the bushes up near King Street when this monster pops up out of nowhere and roars at us.”
“Just some tramp,” Cobb said, glancing at Dora but not ready yet to risk a wink.
“You probably scared him more’n he scared you,” Dora said.
“This wasn’t any normal mortal,” said Fabian, who had begun reading his grandfather’s Shakespeare and dazzling his classmates with unsolicited bursts of pentameter. “He was as big and ugly as Caliban!”
“Now, Fabian-”
“And there was a fiery halo ’round his head!”
Cobb went suddenly still. “When you say big, you mean tall, eh?”
“Tallest man I ever saw, honest.”
“Jesus!” Cobb cried. “It’s him!”
“Mister Cobb, watch yer-”
But Cobb was already scrambling for the door. “Which way did he go?” he said to Fabian, who was on his heels.
“Butch and me let out a yell and the creature turned and run off.”
“But where?” Cobb gasped, tripping on the steps and teetering forward onto the stone walk.
“Straight up King Street. We could see his halo bobbing away.”
“Heading up King towards the river?”
“And running like he had the devil up his backside!”
Cobb was about to reprimand his son for using such an unsavoury image but instead found himself yelling, “Jesus Christ and Christendom!”
Fabian began to laugh. He couldn’t help it: his father was hopping about in his stocking feet and pulling thistles out of their soles.
Back in the parlour-fuming and mortified-Cobb informed Dora that the bogeyman was undoubtedly a fugitive he’d been tracking and, alas, was now heading for the Kingston Road and townships east. He began pulling his boots on over his swollen and prickled feet.
“You’re not goin’ out again?” Dora said. “You’ll drop dead of exertion!”
“I’ve gotta find Sarge and wake him up. We’re gonna need the troops to catch this bugger tonight.”
“What’s goin’ on?” Dora asked, alarmed. “We gonna have another rebellion?”
Cobb stood up on his tender appendages. “We might be-Ow!”
“You gonna shoot him, Dad?” Delia asked, wondrously scandalized.
“I’d like to, luv.”
Moments later, Constable Horatio Cobb was hurrying gingerly through the dark streets of his city, looking once more to his duty.
EIGHT
When Marc arrived home from Government House, he found Beth tucked up in bed, reading. Her father, a Congregational minister from Pennsylvania, had bequeathed her an impressive library of books, most of which she had read more than once. She looked up, smiled, then giggled.
“Do I look that bad?” Marc said, sitting down beside her.
“Not you,” she replied, leaning over to be kissed. “Mr. Pickwick.”
“Ah, you’ve started in on Uncle Frederick’s collection, then?”
“Mr. Dickens is a lot more amusing than Blackstone’s Commentaries or Phillips’ Evidence.”
“Uncle Frederick sent those for my edification, not entertainment.”
“This Dickens fella doesn’t have a lot of respect for barristers.”
“Who does?”
She waited till he had undressed and slipped in beside her before she asked, “Well, are you going tell me about it?”
“Yes, but in the morning when my mind wakes up.”
He reached over and placed a warm hand on her belly.
She shook her head gently, but her smile seemed to say “soon.”