“…coming around, I do believe,” he heard Noddy say spritely. “Yes, he’s awake. Open your eyes, Matthew. Let me ask your opinion.”
Matthew’s eyes opened. Sweat seared them shut again. When he tried once more the world was a place of glaring light and distended shadows. What appeared to be a shining piece of metal shaped like a miniature spade was presented before his face.
“Shall we try this one?” Noddy asked. “It’s useful for digging abscesses out of the gums.”
“I’ll talk,” Matthew heard Rory say, his voice choked.
Matthew tried to shake his head back and forth. It was impossible. He tried to scream No.
What issued from him was a garble that might have been the Ga language, or Prussian, or any dead tongue yet unknown to man.
“Who is Albion?” Mother Deare’s voice was itself a bludgeon.
Matthew heard himself sob. His mouth was a firepit, his entire face in flames.
“You’ll stop torturin’ him if I tell you?”
“Tell.”
“His name is…I’m sorry Matthew, I swear to God I am. His name is Archer. He’s a judge.”
“Archer? William Atherton Archer?”
Rory was silent. In Matthew’s fever-dream he imagined that his friend had nodded yes.
There was a long moment of stillness. Matthew heard the bottle of Velvet being uncorked once more by the giddy dentist.
Mother Deare said quietly, “I don’t know how you came up with that name. I suspect Matthew in his current tribulations with the law heard the name and perhaps mentioned it to you. But if you expect me to believe that an English justice masks himself as Albion and goes around killing the professor’s errand boys, you will next expect me to jump into the chocolate sauce of the Thames and dive for a cherry. Fuck you, your dead mum, your fuckin’ dead Broodies, and every inch of fuckin’ skin I’m gonna flay off your shit-sack body.” In her barely-controlled fury, the foul-mouthed street brawler had made an appearance. “Theo, this time stop playin’ and hurt him.”
The probe slid into Matthew’s mouth. It searched for one of the raw and bleeding holes.
“It’s God’s truth!” Rory shouted. “Albion’s the judge! I’m swearin’ to—”
With a very slight thrust of the spade-tipped probe, the pain that ignited Matthew’s nerves had no precedence. His body fought the cuffs and strap. Sweat flew from his face. The bones of his jaw were being melted by Satanic fire. He let loose a mangled scream that echoed back to his ears a dozen times from the cold stone walls. He had the sensation that an iron spike had been driven deep into his jawbone and now it was being twisted to crack the hard tissue and dig out the marrow. His frantic mental efforts to reach the Broad Way in autumn, with Berry at his side, failed. There was no escape.
Voices faded in and out. Matthew’s eyes opened, again to a world of distortions.
“…tellin’ you true,” Rory was saying. He sounded as if he were near weeping. “It’s that judge, Archer. Go to the Cable Street hospital and see for y’self.”
“This wound he received was life-threatening?” Mother Deare asked, her fiction of proper composure returned.
“Yeah. Ball put him in a bad way.”
“Hm,” she said, and then was silent.
The cork was pulled on the bottle of White Velvet once more. Noddy noisily drank, smacked his lips and returned the cork.
Mother Deare said, “Julian, you and Harrison go to the Cable Street hospital. Find out who was brought in last midnight with a pistol wound. He should be a man aged about forty-two or so, blonde hair, the look of an aristocrat. Definitely not the rabble they usually treat. He would have been brought in by two young men. Ask what name they have on their records.”
“We didn’t give ’em a name,” Rory said. “We told the nurses we didn’t know.”
“Your tale begins to sound interesting, Rory, but if you’re lying to stall your own fate you can be sure you’ll pay for it in the worst way I can devise. And, little man, I can devise the worst.”
“It’s all true, just like I said.”
“We shall see. I know Archer by sight, so I’ll go along for the ride. Noddy, take that thing out of Matthew’s mouth. Then go upstairs. There’s another bottle of your delight in the kitchen cupboard, but be aware I may need you to continue.”
“Yes, and thank you most kindly!”
“We should be back within an hour.” Mother Deare and her men left the room. Before Noddy complied with the woman’s orders he put a spear-tipped probe up one of Matthew’s nostrils as an act of caution. Then he removed the small straps and hooks from the nailheads and with a deft movement born of practice he withdrew the wicked device from his victim’s mouth.
“Procedure finished for the time being, at least,” said Noddy. “We might have to do some more exploratory work later. And you would be my next patient, I believe.” He gave a little bow toward Rory, then he began to return his instruments to the leather bag. “Keep the teeth cleaned, gentlemen! People are far too lax in this regard! If you don’t scrub them in your mouth, you’ll wind up scrubbing them in their glass. That’s what I tell all my patients.” He picked up the bag and the blue bottle, which was nearly empty. Noddy’s eyes behind the spectacles were shiny. “’Til later,” he said with a jolly inflection. Then he left them alone, closing the door at his back.
In the silence that followed, Rory said, “I had to do it.”
Matthew spat blood upon the floor, adding to the coloration.
“I couldn’t let ’em keep doin’ that, could I? I mean…what’s that judge to me?”
Matthew thought he must’ve lost three pounds, for all the sweating he’d done. His jaw and the entire side of his face still throbbed with pain, the muscles of his neck and shoulders felt as if they’d been stretched nearly to the point of tearing loose from the bones, and he was sick to his stomach. Blood from his mouth glistened in streaks down his chest. The memory of the more excruciating pain was close enough to make him tremble all over again.
“I couldn’t!” Rory went on. “You’re a Broodie! How could I let ’em do that and keep my mouth shut?”
“A Broodie,” Matthew said. His voice was almost unrecognizable even to himself. The left side of his face was puffing up. He kept his tongue away from the two holes where the teeth had been. He felt so weak and worn-out he could be folded up and fit inside a very small box, or they could wring him out and pour him into a little blue bottle.
“No sense to go on like that,” Rory said. “Ain’t human.”
Matthew spat more blood and took a deep breath. He released it and said, “Agreed.”
“You do?”
“They weren’t going to stop until they got what they wanted.” His speech was becoming more and more muffled, as if he were trying to speak through a mouthful of feathers. “God help Judge Archer, though.”
“You think they’ll kill him on the spot?”
“No, but they’ll take him out of the hospital. Fell will want him.” Matthew leaned his head back, oblivious to the nails. He shivered involuntarily. A bloody tide rose from his gullet. When he was done, he was a total mess and all he wanted to do was escape into the false comfort of sleep. He had the strength of a ripped-up rag. Even so, he realized that Rory’s minutes were numbered. When Mother Deare returned, Rory was doomed.
Matthew began looking around for any hope of freedom. He tried to move the chair. It was impossible. The little round table was of no help. The oil lamps smoked on the walls, a continent away. He tried to wrench the cuffs loose. When it was apparent they were not going to yield a fraction of a fraction of an inch he put his tenuous strength to the ankle cuffs. Again, there was no movement.
Rory began to quietly laugh.
“What’s wrong with you?” Matthew’s damaged mouth was as hard to work as a rusted pump. “What’s funny?”
“You. Fightin’ the chair and them cuffs. In the shape you’re in, still fightin’. That’s right commendable, Matthew
, but it’s stupid.”
“Why?”
“The flippin’ cow’s got us cooked. You know it, pure ’n simple. Well…I reckon I’m the one to be cooked. But you best save your strength. No use in fightin’ what can’t be beat.”
“There has to be a way out of this!”
“I ’magine that’s been said before in here. Or thought, at least. All the blood on this floor…lot a’ poor buggers been here and gone.” He drew a long breath, and there was some satisfaction in it when he let it go. “I got enough tooth problems, I don’t need no more ’fore I kick off the skin.”
Matthew’s tongue wanted so badly to investigate the holes. The taste of blood in his mouth was sickening. He thought he was going to throw up again, but by force of will he kept everything down and himself steady.
“That was a bad ’un,” said Rory. “Lost two teeth and went through all that, for what? You don’t owe that damn judge nothin’. Hell, look at the tight he’s got you in! I should’a spoke up soon as they put that flippin’ cage in your gabber!”
“I owe him the chance to get away,” Matthew answered. He realized that very soon he wasn’t going to be able to talk at all; his very own case of lockjaw was creeping up on him from the strained muscles. “I don’t know what I was thinking…maybe that by the time…” Damn, it was hard to speak! “By the time they got what they wanted…he’d have been moved out of Whitechapel…to another hospital.” And maybe that had been done today, he thought. Maybe Steven had arranged for his father to be moved. Maybe taken him out and placed him in a private hospital. Yes! There was a possibility of that, for sure. It was something to hope for.
“Reckon so,” said Rory. “Still and all, he got you into this mess. Now, concernin’ me…I’m thinkin’ I got my own self into it. Or maybe takin’ charge of the Broodies did it. Or that deal Mick Abernathy did with the old bitch that I had not a thing to do with.” He was quiet for awhile, and then he said, “Don’t matter, really. Way of the world. Sometimes you stray from the right path, sometimes the right path strays from you. Don’t matter much now. Matthew, I got to pee somethin’ fierce. Do you mind?”
“Go ahead.” Matthew was thinking furiously. This was a deadly game of chess he thought he’d lost before his first move had even been made. “What we have to do,” he said with increasing effort, “is…make you valuable.”
“Me? My guts and bones might be worth somethin’ to a grave robber. That’s ’bout all I got.”
Matthew could only come up with one solution, and it was flimsy but worth a try. “I’ll pay her,” he said.
“What?”
“Pay her,” Matthew repeated. “Money. That’s…all they hold of value.”
“You got a stash hidden somewhere on you?”
“Bargain with her. Pay her…from the Herrald Agency. I’ll work it out.”
Rory didn’t answer. Matthew’s head was swimming. He closed his eyes and jerked them back open again when he realized he’d faded out for a time. How long, he didn’t know.
“You awake?” Rory asked.
“Yes.”
“You went out for awhile. Figured you needed it.”
“How long?” Now the muscles of Matthew’s jaws were so stiff every word was an effort.
“Maybe ten, fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll pay her,” Matthew said, as if to validate the idea. “Like…a ransom. She’ll value that.”
“Maybe she will,” said Rory, but his voice was listless and already seemed far away. “Y’ know,” he went on, “I ain’t never been more’n ten miles out of Whitechapel my whole life. Hardly that. You travel much?”
“Wish I didn’t.”
“I’d like to have travelled. Seen somethin’ of the world. You stay in one place so long, you think that is the world. Then you forget how much is out there. It’s mighty big, ain’t it?”
“Big,” Matthew agreed.
“A sea voyage,” Rory said. “That’s what I wish I’d done.”
“What I wish…I hadn’t done.”
“Sailin’ on a ship. Yessir. Nothin’ ’round you but the wide blue ocean, and the wind in your hair, and them sails spread wide over your head. That’s sure what I wish I’d seen. I can hardly ’magine lookin’ out and seein’ nothin’ but water. Bet that scares some men to the core. Me…I would’a liked it, I think.”
“Pay a ransom,” Matthew said. “Valuable, that way.”
“What’s New York like?” Rory asked.
“Home.”
“Reckon so. That would be good, to have a place you think of as home. Me, I just been passin’ through. Travellin’, I guess…from nowhere to nowhere. Wish I’d taken me a sea voyage.”
“You will,” Matthew said.
“They’re gonna kill me when she gets back,” Rory replied, with a calm that told Matthew he had already dispatched much of his spirit to the other world. “Ain’t no way to make me so valuable they won’t kill me. It was a good thought, though, and I thank you for it.”
“We’ll get out of this,” said Matthew.
“We will…but in different ways. One thing I’d like to ask you, Matthew…Broodie to Broodie. Hearin’ me?”
“Yes.”
“If you can…find out who was in charge of killin’ ’em all. Make whoever did that pay for it, Matthew. I mean it. Make ’em pay.”
“We’ll find out together.”
“No,” said Rory. “No, we won’t.” He was silent for a time, and then he laughed again.
“What?” Matthew asked.
“Funny. A real rib-breaker. That you should be the last of the Black-Eyed Broodies, and carry the torch on. Find out who gave that order, Matthew. Find out what kind of monster could do a thing like that.”
“We both will.”
“As stubborn as your flippin’ teeth,” Rory said, with a snort. “Listen…I’m not much on the Bible and all that, but I figure prayin’ might be a good idea right about now. Would you just hear me?”
“Yes,” Matthew said.
“All right. Well…this is to God I’m speakin’. I’m sorry for the bad things I done. Bet you hear that a whole hell of a lot from people ’bout to die. Hope you don’t turn a deef ear to me. Sorry I stole that horse from that man give me a job. His boy liked that horse, give it the name of Sandy for its color, and there I sold it to a fella run the gluepot house. Well, maybe he figured the horse was for better things and put it in the races or somethin’. Sorry I whipped Joe Connor in front of that girl he was tryin’ to show off to. Sorry I stole the coin from Mary Kellam and lit out in the night when I told her I was comin’ back for supper. Sorry for…all of it. Sorry in an awful big way for what happened to Josh, and me knowin’ what the Velvet was doin’ to people. Now, if I’m goin’ to Hell, that’s why I ought to go. ’Cause I knew the Velvet was different…bad different…and I closed my eyes to it. So if you say I need to go to Hell, I can understand that, and I won’t fuss about it. But…listen…I sure hope them others don’t have to go to Hell. I was the one leadin’ ’em about. They just followed what I said to do. So…don’t blame them and send ’em to Hell for what I done.”
Rory was quiet. Matthew didn’t even try to speak.
“One more thing I’d like to ask,” Rory continued, his voice now very small. “Watch over Matthew. Watch over him, hear? He’s a right good fella, and he’s got some important things to do. Watch over him so he can find the sonofabitch gave that order to kill our fam’ly, and he can cut that bastard’s black heart out and feed it to the crows. I guess that’s all I have to say.”
Rory said no more.
Matthew faded in and out. He was rehearsing what he would say when that door opened. A ransom for Rory’s life. Money drawn from the Herrald Agency. A certain amount per month to keep Rory alive. He could work it out. Mother Deare would accept it, because it was all business. It was profit for her. It made sense. His tongue gingerly felt the holes at the back of his mouth. Mother Deare could be reasoned with, she wasn’t stupid. No
, far from stupid. A profit was a profit, no matter how—
The door opened.
Mother Deare entered the room, with Julian and another man behind her.
“Listen to me!” Matthew said, but his voice was a garbled mess through the swollen mouth. “I can—”
Mother Deare lifted the pistol she was holding at her side and fired into the center of Rory Keen’s forehead.
The crack of the shot was deafening. Blue smoke roiled through the room.
Julian put a leather bag over the dead man’s head and drew it tight with drawstrings around the neck. He knotted the drawstrings twice.
Matthew was no longer in the room. His body was, yes, but his mind had reached out for Berry, there on the Broad Way under the cool breeze and soft sun of autumn.
“We have Albion,” Mother Deare told him, but he hardly heard her. “A young man, two nurses and a doctor tried to stop us. We left them regretting their actions.” She handed the still-smoking pistol to Julian. The other man had begun to remove the body strap and cuffs from Rory’s body.
The young man, Matthew thought with a start. Steven? Had they killed Archer’s son? He couldn’t speak. To his numbed amazement, he realized he was weeping.
“There, there,” Mother Deare said, with a touch of motherly sweetness. “You’re going to be taken upstairs. Clean you up, get you some nice clothes. A cup of warm tea. Something harder to drink, if you’d like that. Noddy says you shouldn’t try to chew anything for awhile. We’re going to be preparing for a trip of ten days. Stopping at inns along the way, so you’re going to be on your best behavior. If you’re a good boy, you’ll be treated as such. Which means not trying to cause us any trouble, as we would not like to have to dispatch anyone who has no stake in this. You see, we’re reasonable people.”
“Archer,” Matthew managed to croak. “You’re going to kill him?”
Freedom of the Mask Page 39