by Adam Carter
“How long’s he been missing for?”
“Two months. She said the police haven’t done anything to help, so she’s come to us.”
“Not a nice thing to have to start our business on,” Tarne said. “What with our ‘no find, no fee’ policy.”
“We have a no find, no fee policy?” Darkthorne asked.
“Looks good for the clients,” Tarne said.
“Then I suppose we’d better find him.”
“What’s the plan?” Kiel asked. “We going to stand here all night waiting for him to just show up?”
“He’s not likely going to show up at all,” Sparky said. “He’s likely dead is what he is.”
Tarne’s dog began growling softly then and Tarne hushed it. Warner was sensing something, however, and Tarne knew to trust him. “Someone’s coming,” she said.
Just then two men appeared on the docks. They were both aged in their fifties and neither looked as though he should have been there. The onlookers watched them intently, although were unable to make out anything they were saying. Eventually, the two men walked into one of the boats.
“That’s where we need to go,” Darkthorne decided.
“Why,” Tarne asked, “because two guys just went in there?”
“No, because it beats standing around here all night. You coming?”
“Well it beats standing around here all night.”
“I’ll stand guard over here,” Sparky volunteered. “I may be in the minority here, but I think I’d rather be bored than shot full of holes.”
“You saw the guns too, then?” Darkthorne asked.
“Jeez Louise no, I just assumed they had them. Every shifty-looking goon down at the docks carries a piece.”
“They have guns?” Tarne asked Darkthorne. “You saw they have guns and you didn’t want to tell anybody?”
“We need guns,” Kiel said.
“Where are we going to get guns from?” Tarne shot at her. “Besides, we’re not cops. We start waving guns around and we’re going to find ourselves in the slammer faster than a jackrabbit chasing mice.”
“Cats chase mice,” Darkthorne said. “I don’t think rabbits chase anything faster than a lettuce.”
“Then they shouldn’t be so damned fast then, should they?”
“I’m still going in there.”
“Good for you.”
“You coming?”
“No. I’m staying right here.” Warner began growling again. “And you can shut up as well, boy.”
“But I didn’t say anything,” Sparky protested.
“Fine,” Darkthorne said. “Sara?”
“Sure.”
Tarne watched them go. “Idiots,” she mumbled, then started off after them.
She reached their side just as they were trying to peer into the boat. “Thought you weren’t going to join us,” Darkthorne smirked.
“Don’t get smuggy with me, Darkthorne, else I’m going to set my dog on you.” She glanced to the side and saw that in bright bold letters the name of the boat was spelled out to her.
BASTELLE
She frowned, and Kiel caught her expression. “Something wrong, Heather?” she asked
“I just thought for a moment that ... nah, its nothing.”
“What was?”
“Déjà vu, that’s all. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“If you’re through having a mothers’ meeting,” Darkthorne said, “do you think you might be able to keep the noise down a tad please?”
“Since when did he grow so adherent to rules?” Kiel asked.
“Since when was he sane?” Tarne asked.
Darkthorne ignored them both and made his way carefully up the ramp leading to the boat. He did not cast the light of his torch about, he was not that stupid, and instead moved very slowly, minding his step, until he had been entirely swallowed by the entrance. Kiel and Tarne looked at one another and each prompted the other to go first. Eventually it was Kiel who relented and followed Darkthorne into the belly of the boat. Tarne counted silently to ten, then to fifteen, then to another ten, and decided she had waited long enough and probably should follow them inside. Instead, she turned around to go home.
It was at this point she heard a gunshot.
Tarne dropped down and froze, although she did not hear a second shot. There was shouting coming from within the boat, although no one seemed to be getting hurt. Eventually, she managed to summon up courage enough to take a look, and from the entrance she peered inside. The boat was small, only two rooms that she could see, although the door was closed and she could not see into the second. Instead she dropped back and huddled upon the docks, waiting to see what would happen.
After about five minutes, there came movement. Darkthorne and Kiel were marched out at gunpoint, several simple-looking goons with high foreheads and sunken expressions surrounding them. Tarne remained under cover for some time, then braved to follow them, jumping and almost shouting as a dark form dropped down before her.
“Heather, it’s me.”
“Sparky.” She breathed hard, clutching her chest. “Don’t do that.”
“Sorry. They got the captain, what’re we going to do?”
“The only thing we can do, we’re going to follow them.”
“You think maybe we should call the police?”
“I think maybe we should, but we’re not going to. With any luck, these people can tell us what they’ve done to Edwards. Even if they’ve killed him, we should still be able to charge the family for passing along this information. I suspect we’ll have to provide them with a body in order to claim, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“You really think he’s holding up a bridge somewhere?”
“Actually, that’s not such a far-fetched idea, although I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I reckon we shouldn’t be following them like this, just the two of us.”
“I reckon you’re right, but we’re still going to have to. They’re depending on us, and we have to get them out of this.”
“I’m not good at having people depend on me, Heather. I tend to let them down.”
“Then now’s the time to change your ways, Sparky. Come on, they’re getting away from us while we’re standing here chatting.”
They hurried across the docks, Werner hastening along behind them, and hid behind an overturned rowing boat as the group of men disappeared into one of the warehouses. Two men were left on guard, so Tarne decided they could not use this entrance. Instead, she moved about the side of the warehouse, searching quickly for a window by which they might break in. Fortune was with her, for she espied several windows, and some of these were even broken. Only one appeared to have no glass at all, however, and therefore this was the one through which she knew she would have to squeeze if she was to enter the warehouse undetected.
Unfortunately, the windows were all higher than she could reach, and were attached to the sloping roof some twenty metres in the air.
“You any good at climbing, Sparky?”
“About as good as you are at joking, Heather.”
“Can you think of any other way to get in there?”
“We could fly.”
“Can you think of any serious way to get up there?”
“Uhm ... no.”
“Then we climb.” Tarne looked about her and located a large coil of rope attached to an iron ring. The ring was rusted and the rust had rubbed off onto the rope; mixed with the rain, it had turned the hemp into a terrible mess; but it was all they had available and as such the only thing with which they could work. Tarne set about loosening it, although the rope was attached tightly and nothing she did could remove it from the ring.
“Here,” Sparky said as he procduced a flick-knife to saw through the rope, although it was still a great effort for him.
“You carry a knife?” Tarne asked, shocked.
“Sometimes it pays to around Jagrad.”
“I’m not going
to argue with you there.”
He eventually got the rope free and handed it Tarne, who was forced to confess she had no idea as to how she was to get it up to the window. “I have an idea,” Sparky said. He tied one end to the overturned rowboat and motioned for Tarne to follow him as he trailed the rest of the length. They hid down beside the corner of the warehouse and then, with one almighty jerk, Sparky pulled the rowboat several feet along the wood of the docks. It made a terrible commotion as it smashed into a wooden plank, and then screeched across the deck until Sparky released his hold upon the rope.
Tarne was just about to ask him what he thought that had achieved when suddenly the two guards from the door rushed past them, their hands in their inside pockets as they moved up to examine the rowboat. Sparky placed a hand upon Tarne’s shoulder and together they flitted back to the warehouse entrance, slipping inside before the confused men could return.
“That was quick thinking,” Tarne remarked, “but how are we going to get out again once we’re done?”
“Heather, in my experience guards don’t watch for people getting out if they’re meant to be protecting against intruders. We can just rush them when we need to leave.”
“In your experience?” Tarne echoed with a smile, and yet somehow she could not help but feel his words had been spoken truly.
“Let’s press on,” Sparky said.
They moved slowly, knowing that any slight sound would echo terribly throughout the warehouse, for the ceiling was high and the acoustics something the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra would have paid well for. They caught sight of movement soon enough and dropped down to peer over some large crates. There were several men standing before them, some with guns, some not, and they seemed to be waiting for something. Darkthorne and Kiel were both there also, kneeling with their hands placed upon their heads. They had not been bound, which would make rescuing them easier, although still could Tarne see no way by which she might be able to get these men to hand over their guns.
“Any more bright ideas?” she asked of Sparky. He seemed to have already come up with several.
“Hey, calling the cops was always something I would have gone with from the very beginning, Heather.”
“I’m beginning to agree with you on this one,” she admitted. “They seem to be waiting for something, though. Or someone. What say we wait it out and see what it is before we decide what to do?”
“If you think it’s for the best. I just don’t want to see our two friends get shot on account of us not wanting to lose money.”
“If we get black-marked on our first outing, this entire business will fail, Sparky. Jagrad’s failed at everything else in his life, I don’t think he really wants to have to see this one fall through as well.”
“At least he’d be alive to complain about it.”
“Ten minutes. If no one’s turned up by then, we’ll call the police. Deal?”
“Fine. Just so long as we don’t have to phone them to report a double murder.”
Warner growled softly once more. Tarne shushed him. Sparky grunted in quietened anger.
The ten minutes passed slowly, and just as Sparky was about to go for the police, something happened. Two people entered the warehouse. They were visually alike in many ways, not in the least in the way they dressed, and Tarne instantly assumed they were related, probably father and son since one was about twenty and the other perhaps forty. Tarne listened carefully to hear their words, for she knew somehow that this was the turning point for everything.
“Now,” the older man asked of Darkthorne and Kiel, folding his arms, “suppose one of you starts by telling me just what you’re doing here?”
“Just looking for somebody,” Darkthorne said truthfully. “Nothing special, just trying to track someone down.”
“You cops?”
“Never tried that before, no.”
“What are you, then?”
“Like I’m going to tell you that,” Darkthorne laughed.
“His name’s Jagrad Darkthorne,” one of the other men said tiredly to the newcomer. “He’s head of the Darkthorne Legion, some form of private investigations firm.”
“Only because you found that card in my inside pocket,” Darkthorne said defiantly. “You could have tortured us and I would never have given you that information.”
“You would have let them torture me?” Kiel asked. “Just to keep your own name secret?”
“Sara, I’m trying to show a brave face here.”
“Brave face? Just wait ‘til they let us lower our arms and I’ll show you just what I’m going to do to your face.”
“What are they doing here?” the newcomer asked of his own man who had spoken, already tired of the prisoners’ arguing.
“Not sure,” the man replied. “They say they’re looking for someone, so they probably are. Maybe Rossini hired them to find out about our shipment.”
“That right?” the newcomer asked of Darkthorne. “Rossini hire you?”
“The man who hired us was named William Tell.”
“Tell?”
“As in Rossini’s overture?” Darkthorne looked upon blank expressions. “Man, even for hoods, you guys are thick.”
“Oh Lord,” Kiel muttered.
The apparent leader of these people, however, only snickered at Darkthorne’s bravado, mistaking a sign of insanity for a show of strength. “Here’s how it is, Darkthorne,” he said, slowly walking about the two prisoners as he spoke. “Rossini hired you to find me, perhaps even to kill me. But you underestimated me; hell, you didn’t even bring any shooters with you. Just how much is the name Edwards worth on the streets nowadays?”
“Edwards?” Darkthorne asked, confused. “But that was ...”
“That was what?”
“That was the name of the person we were sent to find. A man named Edwards hired us to find his son, Daryl Edwards, who disappeared a few months ago. He ... why are you laughing?”
The leader shook his head, trying to curtail his laughter somewhat. “I see what’s happened now, Mr Darkthorne. Rossini set you up.”
“But I don’t know anybody by the name of Rossini.”
“No, but I think you met him. He pretended to be me and hired you to find my son, knowing that once you found him you’d have also found me. Then you’d either take my son back to Rossini, or else tell Rossini where he could be found. Either way, Rossini gets my shipment. Clever, real sweet in fact.”
Darkthorne was still confused. “You’re Edwards?”
“Don’t mind him,” Kiel said, “he’s always this stupid. So, Mr Edwards, now that I think we all understand what’s happened, what do you intend to do with us? We’re not a part of Rossini’s operation, and to be honest we’re not even sure what that operation involves. Drugs, guns, whatever, we don’t know anything, and that’s the truth.” She was not pleading for her life, Kiel would never do that. Instead she was just stating facts, which was something she generally did a lot.
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Edwards asked her. “I could let you go and you might go back to Rossini for the money, or I could plug you and throw you in the river and no one would ever know. I could even cut off an ear or two to make it less traceable to me. People turn up in the river all the time with pieces cut off, it’s all to do with the London Voodoo market, they say.”
“I’m going for option A right now,” Kiel said.
Edwards laughed. “I’m sure you are, doll.”
“Don’t call me doll.”
There was a fire to Kiel’s eyes that made Edwards’s smile flatten somewhat. “Get rid of them,” Edwards said.
Suddenly, something erupted on the far side of the warehouse, and a fire instantly engulfed all the crates in that area. The crates must have been filled with some form of gunpowder, for they exploded on contact with the flames.
“Move!” Edwards commanded. “Someone’s told Rossini where we are!”
The warehouse became a mass of confused bodies, and
Kiel and Darkthorne felt hands upon their arms. “Let’s go,” Tarne said.
Gunshots sounded throughout the warehouse, and all three of them ducked as they ran. Tarne seemed to know where she was headed, so Darkthorne and Kiel were content to follow. They moved quickly, keeping low and trying not to be terrified by the constant explosions occurring all about them. A flaming girder collapsed close to them, and they barely managed to avoid its plummet. Flames erupted all about them now, and they strained to see through the blaze.
“There,” Tarne said, pointing. “The wall’s burnt through, we should be able to make it.”
“Don’t talk, go!” Darkthorne shouted at her. “Go go go!”
As they ran out onto the docks, Sparky joined them, with Warner the dog running gaily alongside him. “We need to move,” Sparky said. “Come on, people, move.”
They did not stop running until they were far from the docks and back within the city, by which time they could run no farther and all but collapsed against a wall in a back alley.
“I take it ... you called this Rossini character, then?” Darkthorne asked once he had recaptured his breath somewhat.
But Tarne shook her head. “We just started setting crates alight and hoped they’d think that, too. Didn’t know they were filled with explosive materials, though.”
“Well,” Kiel said, for some reason not breathing quite as hard as the rest, “this was not exactly a glorious beginning for Darkthorne Investigations.”
“No,” Darkthorne agreed, not correcting her on the name, “but it was a mighty fine way to go out.”
“Go out?”
“Edwards will be gunning for us now, and even if he wasn’t, I think this incident has just proved I don’t have what it takes to be a private investigator. The Darkthorne Legion shall endure, but not in this life.”
“Then what’ll we do from now on?” Tarne asked.
“I don’t know,” Darkthorne shrugged, smiling as he did so, “but I was thinking that maybe we should go to Vegas.”
THE END
PAST CHAPTER
Darkthorne had gone to find Sparky, which meant he had gone to spend some time at the casino, which left Kiel and Tarne on their way towards Madame Shalla. The king had given them the mission to find his lost daughter, along with the ultimatum of facing execution should they fail, and the two women decided their time could be better spent avoiding the hangman’s noose rather than losing money they did not have.