“For this little fellow,” he said, taking a passing street arab by the collar and slipping the coin into his filthy hands. Barker murmured something into his ear, and the boy ran off like Scotland Yard was after him.
“Oh, no-you’ve asked for Soho Vic, haven’t you?” I complained. “Just when I thought today couldn’t get any worse.”
A half hour later the aforementioned blight upon humanity invaded our quarters in his usual manner-over the back wall and through the back door. I really must counsel Barker to put some broken glass atop the wall for our personal safety. As it stood, just anyone could get in.
“ ’Ello, Ugly. Cracked your egg, did yer? Afternoon, Mr. Barker, sir.”
“Ah, Vic,” Cyrus Barker said. He always allowed him liberties. As usual, the young man went to the cigar box on Barker’s desk and in a minute, was seated in the visitor’s chair attempting to blow a proper smoke ring, one leg wagging negligently over the leather arm.
“I have a message I want delivered to several individuals, some of whom have no fixed abode.”
“Got it. What’s the message?” he asked. Vic was wearing a collar so loose it hung around his neck, and a rusty coat with his sleeves rolled up at the wrists. As usual, his black hair shot out in each direction, like the spines of a sea anemone, and he displayed his congenital aversion to soap.
“Inform them there is to be a meeting tomorrow at six P.M. sharp. The address is thirty-seven Wentworth Street.”
“Meeting tomorrow, six sharp, thirty-seven Wentworth. Got it. Who gets the message?”
“Patrick Hooligan; Robert Dummolard, who can be reached at Le Toison d’Or; and Ben Tillett of the West India Docks.”
Vic took a large puff and blew it out again, then listed the receivers in order on his grubby fingers.
“Hooligan, Frenchie in Soho, and the docks. Got it.”
“I want you to deliver them yourself, if possible, by noon tomorrow.”
“Easy as fallin’ off a bridge. I’ll need two pounds for my troubles. That’s two pounds sterling, turnip face,” he said to me, “if you’ve got the scratch.”
With a sigh, I took out two pound notes and started writing the expense in the ledger. Vic reached for the notes and in doing so, managed to flick the ash from his cigar all over the shoulder of my cutaway.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” he cried, taking the opportunity to rub the ash all over me while appearing to wipe it away. I think he’d been planning it since the moment he’d entered. He’s diabolical that way. I bore the insult silently. Barker would take the accident at face value. A businessman like Soho Vic had no time for pranks.
“P’raps if we wipe some ink on it, it’ll go black again-” the boy offered helpfully, reaching for the bottle on my desk.
“Never mind,” I said, putting the ink out of reach. “You’ve got your orders and your money. Now go.”
“Touchy, he is,” Vic said, and tsked. “I’m off, then. Ta for the smoke.”
He left, out the back door as always, but a minute later, put his head back in.
“What is it, Vic?” Barker asked with somewhat less patience than he had exhibited the moment before. Vic, I should point out, did not stand for Victor. The boy’s real name was Stanislieu Sohovic. He was a transplanted Pole who had buried his origins in a Cockney accent.
“Would you be requiring anyfing else, sir? Anyfing at all?”
“Just the messages. Why do you ask?”
“Well, sir, I know the I-talians are kicking up, and that Mr. Etienne got hisself stabbed. Are you taking ’em on?”
“If I did, ’twould be no concern of yours,” the Guv replied coolly.
“I might be concerned if I were part of that list myself. I’ve got plenty o’ boys ready for a scrap anytime. You name it.”
“None of them are over fifteen,” my employer said dismissively.
“We grow up fast on the streets, sir,” Vic continued. “Some of me lads is full growed. We’ve been in dozens of scraps before. Just say the word, and we’re there.”
“No, Vic. Do you hear me? No!”
Soho Vic frowned. I don’t think Barker had ever spoken to him in such a manner before. He’d always treated Vic as an adult associate, a business partner, but now he was being dismissed as a child.
Vic opened his mouth to speak and then shut it again. Finally he shrugged, affecting that he didn’t care. “Suit yourself, then, Push. If you need me, ask around.”
He took himself off with less bluster than he had entered with.
“Five thirty, sir,” Jenkins announced, coming around the corner as if Big Ben down the street hadn’t informed us already. “Dare I risk a return to the Rising Sun?”
“Is your house well fortified?” Barker asked.
“All locked and barricaded, sir.”
“If we walk you to the Sun, can you find escorts to see you home?”
“I’m certain I could, Mr. B.” It was obvious he was eager to go.
“Would it disturb you if Thomas and I dined there? We would sit at a private table.”
“Of course it wouldn’t, sir.”
“Drat!” I said.
“What is it, lad?” our employer asked, looking my way.
“Nothing, sir. Soho Vic nicked my ledger pen. It must have happened when he destroyed my suit.”
“Nonsense. You must have mislaid it. You have several pens.”
“It was my favorite nib.”
He cleared his throat as if to say that writing instruments were beneath his notice, and returned to the matter at hand.
“You have no objection, Jenkins-you are certain?” Barker pursued.
“Of course not, sir.”
“Very well. Let us close up the office for the day.”
We were just putting on our hats and extricating our sticks from the hat stand by my desk when something shot in through the postal slot and slid across the polished parquetry of the entranceway. It was an envelope, rather flat. Jenkins opened the door and shouted “Hey!” returning a moment later.
“It was a child, sir. A messenger. He ran off when I called. It’s addressed to you, Mr. L.,” Jenkins said, lifting it from the floor.
With a dry mouth, I took the envelope and opened it with my dagger. I was clumsy with it, because my fingers were nerveless. Extricating the note, I read the words circling around the black handprint in the center:
We did not wish you to feel left out, Mr. Llewelyn. You have killed a promising young man and are becoming a nuisance. Who will save you when your boss is saving everyone else?
24
Ours is a short and narrow alley, opening into a rectangular courtyard where the telephone exchange is located. There are other enquiry agents’ offices in the street, as well as a branch of Cox and Company, where Barker does some of his banking. Save a narrow gate at the back of the court, which is generally locked, there is no way of escape. That means that should anyone choose to step in our front door, we would have to go out the back into our private yard and over the wall. Barker is no Soho Vic, however, and would stand and fight rather than escape. During a recent case, a fellow had entered our chambers wielding a saber. I wondered what would happen if someone came in with a loaded shotgun, like the one that killed Victor Gigliotti.
I thought this not because I was in one of my maudlin moods but because a man walked into our offices and I suddenly felt like a rat caught in a trap. It was the hokeypokey man we had seen on the street outside our residence. Were I a betting man, I would have put money that he was Marco Faldo. Jenkins invited him to wait and came to announce our visitor. Our clerk, who enjoyed proper form as much as Mac, carried a carte de visite on a salver. Did the man have the effrontery to present one that proclaimed “Marco Faldo, late of Palermo”? The Guv scooped it off the tray and scrutinized it. Then he tapped the card against his lower lip as if gathering his thoughts before instructing Jenkins to let the visitor in.
The Italian who had regaled us recently entered in a more somber mood than before. Up close, the lines in his forehead and around his eyes were more evident. His hair was thinner than I had first perceived, and it was possible he dyed it, for the line between the black and the gray of his temples was too severe. He was older than I had thought. Our visitor seemed tired and dispirited and sank down into the chair in front of Barker without a word, and without any display of firearms.