Turnkey (The Gaslight Volumes of Will Pocket Book 1)

by Lori Williams

  My hands soon found their way to a pillow, which found its way to Gren's slobbering face.

  “Hey!” he shouted, waking from his nap to a surprise suffocation. “What the hell?!?”

  He kicked and thrashed on his cot in the janitor's closet, the same room, I realized, that I had been put into after passing out during the crash. I pulled the pillow away and began violently striking him over the crown with it.

  “What the hell are you doing?!?” he yelled, grabbing the weapon of my assault and kicking me away. “Stop it, you ass!”

  “Why?” I demanded, balling my fists.

  “Why what?!?” he asked back. “What's the damn problem?!?”

  “The problem is our 'arrangement,' partner.”

  “Ohhhh...I see. So the Priest told you 'bout that.”

  “I could kill you.”

  “First of all, no, you couldn't. And second, calm down!”

  “So, what is it? What did you enlist me to do?”

  “He didn't tell you? You said—”

  “I didn't wait for an explanation.”

  “Then how do you know it’s something so damn awful?!?”

  “Because I don't trust you!”

  Gren drew back, visibly insulted.

  “Oh, that's real nice, Pocket. Really stinkin' nice. We've only been in this together, what, how long?”

  “About two weeks,” I said, bringing up a sharp pain through my chest.

  I forced myself to regain composure and fixed my eyes back on Gren.

  “Besides,” I continued, “I've been in it with Kitt even longer, and look where that trust got me.”

  I dropped my back against the wall and slid down to the floor.

  “Pocket,” Gren said, “it's rotten luck, yeah. But I didn't really have a choice. And this goes back before I met you at all. I wasn't thinking. The Priest needed some help and I needed the pay. But he needed two men, so I stretched the truth a little. Told him I had a partner. Figured I could dig one up somewhere, but no one I found wanted to get mixed up with pirates.”

  “Imagine that.”

  “I'm sorry, okay? And I really did try to get you all onboard honestly. When I left you at the tea house and tracked down Jack, I figured they wouldn't care about a few more bodies on the Lucidia. I was wrong.”

  “So you remembered your business opportunity?” I guessed, dryly.

  “It was the only way I could get you onto the ship. Plus, I really do need the money.”

  “Hmph, why? Poker not keeping up with your lifestyle? Saving up for a few more of your rivet metal tattoos?”

  “I have my reasons.”

  I sighed and rubbed my eyes.

  “You could've at least told me, Gren.”

  “I didn't think you'd go for it.”

  I laughed. “Funny.”

  “Well, I couldn't risk it, ass! If you would've gone all high and noble on me, the ship would've sailed and we'd still be sitting there stranded in the woods.”

  “Instead of stranded in the sea?”

  “Yeah, well...hindsight...”

  “Couldn't you have at least volunteered Kitt instead?”

  “I didn't really trust him.”

  I laughed again. I sighed again.

  “Hindsight.”

  “Look,” Gren said, scowling, “we're already involved, so we might as well grow a damn pair, go out, and get it over with.”

  “I don’t have time for this. Kitt’s already—“

  “Chasing after Kitt’s going to require money, which is something we don’t have. So let’s take a breather for a day and collect some earnings. Besides, give the fox a little thinking time and he may just change his attitude and return.”

  “But what if he doesn’t?”

  “That’s not worth thinking about. And he’s gotten a damn good head start on us already, so we’re kinda without options here. Let’s just appease our hosts, figure out a way to shore, and make some money in the process.”

  I raised an eyebrow and dropped my jaw.

  “I don't have to do anything illegal, do I?”

  Gren shrugged and looked away.

  “Not exactly.”

  They threw me into a suit. A tuxedo. They stuck me in matching shoes, and oddly enough, everything fit. They combed my messy hair and advised me on posture. And then I asked the vital question.

  “Why, exactly?”

  “Because you need to be presentable, silly!” Quill beamed, tying my tie.

  “Presentable for...”

  “The party.”

  “Party? I thought I was supposed to be working.”

  “Oh, you will,” she innocently grinned. “There. Done. Very handsome, Mister Pocket. Very...eh...what's the word? Bi...be...?”

  “Becoming?”

  “Something like that. All right. I have to go get dressed. The Madame will be in shortly.”

  “Oh, are you attending this party as well, Quill?”

  “Yep!” she announced. “I'll be tagging along behind you.”

  “Why?” I asked, growing sick of the question.

  “Because you're my brother!” she cheered, as mischievous as a child.

  She scurried out of the room with a chorus of tee-hee-hee's.

  “Huh...” I said, fiddling with the buttons on my sleeves. “Strange. I wonder why—“

  And the world suddenly went black. The next thing I remember, I was waking up on the floor of the ship's washroom and Madame B was wiping down her switchblade with a cloth.

  “Uh...” I warbled, head aching. “Hey...what's...”

  “Oh, hi,” she playfully replied. “You have wakey time now, yes?”

  “What...did you do to me?”

  “Clean shave,” she said, smiling.

  “Shave?” I replied, pulling my body up.

  B chuckled and made a grand, swooping motion with her knife. “Shave!”

  My eyes went wide. “You came at me with that thing?!?” I quickly felt my chin, my neck. Smooth. “You did!”

  “Gotta look your best, Pocket.”

  “You could've slit my throat!”

  “I know, I know. That's why I gave you night-night time. Less wiggling.”

  Night-night?!? I spotted an open bottle sitting beside her. Ether. Ether?!?

  “You drugged me?!?”

  Madame B giggled and shrugged.

  “You're all mad!” I shouted.

  “Yeeeeeeeess...” she stated. “But you look nice.”

  “I don't care how nice I look! It's—“

  “Shut up. You're fine. Here, I'll fix your tie.”

  “I just did that,” Quill said, entering from the back.

  “Well, you should've waited until after the shave,” B sassed to the girl.

  “Hang on,” I interrupted. “Let's all just slow down here and—Quill, what the hell are you wearing?”

  “Do ya like it?” she answered.

  The small woman was primped and well-dressed in a tuxedo similar to mine, tie and all, and wore her short, bobbed hair combed and slicked back in a men's style. And then, eyes sparkling, she brought from her coat pocket a large, bristly, false mustache and stuck it to her upper lip.

  “Yay!” she said in victory. “The illusion is complete!”

  I frowned widely. “So...you're a man now?”

  “Of course I'm not, sensei!” she clarified, positively glowing behind the furry lip. “But tonight I shall be playing the role of your charming rogue of a brother, Laurence!”

  “Seriously, what is this?”

  “I am serious!” she pouted. “Sometimes, William, I think you too greatly resemble our beloved, late father.”

  “Quill, no. Don't do that.”

  I could see her heart sink beneath her purple waistcoat.

  “Why not?” she asked. “Don't you think I'd make a good little brother?”

  “Men don't say 'yay,' Quill,” I pointed out. “And for what it's worth, I don't think you should be getting yourself involved with...whate
ver this whole affair is about.”

  “She's a big girl,” Miss B chimed in. “She can handle herself.”

  “Sure,” Quill said. “It's no problem. Really.”

  “I don't know,” I said. “Couldn't Gren or Jack just—“

  And then they entered, the gambler and the boiler monkey, wearing matching tuxedos and, much more frightening, matching false mustaches.

  “Oh, come on!” I snapped.

  “Easy,” B said, laughing. “Don't get so worked up.”

  “We've got one for you, too!” Hack-Jack told me. He then proceeded to jam his hand deep into his coat. He pulled out a waded, musty mustache and slapped it into my hand like a doorman's tip.

  “No thanks,” I said, discarding the gift in a waste bin. “Seems a waste of the shave I've just gotten.”

  “We're on the run, idiot,” Gren said. “Disguises are important.”

  “You're right, Gren. And I'm sure the King's men will never recognize our faces behind an inch of what I'm guessing is horsehair.”

  “Still...”

  “I'll risk it.”

  “Fine. Suit yourself, Vanity,” Madame B jeered. “Get recognized and shot.”

  “At least I won't be buried in a bad mustache.”

  “You think you're so witty, don't you?”

  “Just an optimist, lady.”

  As she sighed, the Priest waltzed in and joined the conversation.

  “I know this is all very sudden,” he said to me, “but try to go along with it. Miss B and I don't have the luxury of attending such festivities ourselves, so sometimes we to need to send in our representatives.”

  “Oh?” I said, dreading the response. “Why is that?”

  “Quill and me have a little advantage, ya see,” Jack said, tossing his arm around my shoulder, “in that the police don't have as much on us. Don't know our real names, even what we look like. Priest and B, eh, not so lucky.”

  We moved to the Priest's room, where he produced from his collection a pair of wanted posters quite similar to the ones you have here in the bar, Alan. Detailed photographs of the pirates' faces, closely cropped, filled the pages. Underneath in bold letters were their legal names and a flowing list of aliases.

  Gene Michael Carmike, the Red Priest.

  Millie Tiffany Bugle, the switchblade tarot queen.

  The King and Queen of the Pirates, detailed in typeface.

  “I can see how this would complicate things,” I said, remembering the wanted sketch Doctor D had done of Kitt, Dolly, and myself. Ah, come to think of it, I had forgotten until that moment that I still had that sketch on me, tucked away somewhere in my coat. But I digress, yes Alan, yet again.

  “Millie Tiffany?” I asked, amused. Madame B squeezed her eyes at me.

  “Don't use those names,” she fussed, crossing her arms and nodding to the Priest. “I barely let him use them.”

  “It's true,” he said.

  “But you see, right?” Quill said to me. “Why we need you?”

  “Uh...I think,” I replied. “Extra set of hands, right? Since those two can't go out?”

  “Correct, Professor!” she cheered. “Now let's get ready for the ball!”

  “The ball, right...uh...this is where I'm still having trouble understanding. What exactly am I to do there?”

  The Priest clucked his tongue and pulled a long-stemmed rose from a vase in his quarters.

  “Enjoy yourself,” he said, snapping the stem away and approaching me.

  “Just...enjoy myself?”

  He laughed and began working the flower into my lapel. “That's what I said. Have some fun. Drink a little wine. Tell some of your stories. Try to be captivating.”

  “Captivating?”

  “You know, charming. Get the attention of the right people for, oh, a good amount of the evening.”

  I grimaced. “I'm a diversion?”

  “That's an ugly word. Think of happier words, like 'socialite' or—“

  “You're a diversion,” Madame B said, cutting to the chase.

  “For what?” I asked.

  “Does that matter?” she said, grinning like a well-fed tiger.

  “Yeah, don't sweat it,” Gren said. “We'll handle the details. Just business.”

  “You'll have fun,” the Priest assured me. “Perfectly safe, perfectly reasonable fun. So don't worry about it. There. Looks good on you.”

  He brought my attention to the rose he had pinned to me.

  “Very nice,” I said sickly.

  “I agree. And the petals hide those bullet holes nicely, don't they?”

  My stomach dropped as I felt the small tears in my coat. And that's how this episode began. With a dead man's tuxedo.

  Why the people of the world insist on dressing me in the clothing of the dead is something I will never know, but it doesn't seem to cast a friendly omen.

  “It is slightly creepy, Pocket. I will give you that. Not to put your mind on such manners, but can you vouch for your current attire?”

  “If they came from a dead man, Alan, I sure wasn't told when I received them.”

  “Kinda breaks the tradition, then.”

  “Not necessarily. For all I know, a dead man could be wearing them right now.”

  “Sigh...”

  The Priest tapped his foot excitedly and clapped his hands together.

  “So,” he said, “if there's nothing else—”

  “One thing,” I interjected.

  The captain put on a very polite smile and crinkled his nostrils. “What now, Pocket?”

  “Well, don't you think that we might have a slight difficulty in attending this little event?”

  “The difficulty being...?”

  “That we're stranded on a broken ship.”

  “Ah!” the captain replied. “I have been thinking about that.”

  I was ushered down deep through the ship’s hull to a large chamber that thankfully had not flooded.

  “Excellent,” the Red Priest said, lighting candles in the only slightly tilted room. “It's still in one piece.”

  The “it” that the gentleman was referring to sat slumped in the corner on its tires.

  “A carriage?” I asked, surprised.

  “Not only a carriage,” the Priest boasted. “It's an Alexandrian Prospero Mark-I steam car! One of the originals!”

  “So, it's an antique?”

  “Fully functional, Pocket! Fully functional!”

  “Hrmm...” I had heard of those things, steam cars. They were among the earlier advancements that the King had introduced in his rejuvenation of Britain. Horseless carriages equipped with, as the name suggests, a portable steam engine to propel the damn things along. Newer electric carriages have since made these steam cars terribly outdated, but of course, I don't have to tell you that.

  “So what's your plan?” I asked. “It's not like we can drive this thing across the surface of the sea.”

  The Red Priest chortled and gently patted the Prospero. “Not yet.”

  The pirates spent the remainder of the day feverishly working. The Priest and Hack-Jack, proving their reputations as tinkerers, clawed at parts and pieces in an attempt to outfit the Prospero with a functional...something.

  “Jack, don't you want to change your clothes for this kind of work?” I suggested.

  He shrugged. “Grease is black. This tuxedo's black. If I get a stain, who's gunna know?”

  “At least take off the mustache,” I mumbled.

  “What's that?”

  “Nothing, Jack.”

  They worked diligently, with Gren hovering around them and yelling the occasional suggestion.

  Madame B and Quill took me aside during most of the mechanical operation and gave me a fast course in what they knew of social etiquette, most of which I instantly forgot.

  “Just be witty,” B told me.

  “And how do I do that?”

  “You're a storyteller. You figure it out.”

  “Do I have to fig
ure out why as well, or are you lot going to let me in on this scheme of yours?”

  “Fine, fine,” B said. “Listen up. I'm only saying this once.”

  And at last I was given specifics. Leaning in close, I followed along attentively as the pirate queen detailed the purpose behind my reluctant employment. Apparently in the course of their various travels, the crew had, let's say, intercepted a formal invitation meant for a stately family residing in the southern part of the country. It seems that this family of four brothers had involved themselves and their pocketbooks in the funding of some sort of “modern” business operation called Finley Aeroworks. The company was hosting their annual investors' ball, and being such, the brothers were enthusiastically encouraged to attend.

  “So?” I asked.

  Madame B produced the invite and ran her index finger across a typed sentence at the bottom of the stationary.

  DONATIONS WELCOME.

  I frowned. “You don't mean—”

  “All you have to do, Pocket, is socialize,” she said to me. “Just work the crowd long enough for Jack and Gren to get their hands on the donation box and get it outside.”

  “And if we're caught?”

  “You won't be.”

  “But if we—“

  “You. Won't. Be.”

  I heard Jack scream from the next room, grunting and swearing over a pinched thumb. I gave B a look to let her know that I was less than reassured.

  “Just have fun,” she said.

  “Under the guise of someone else? Someone who might look nothing like me?”

  “Eh, all these financial types do their business in correspondence and letters. Chances are that those blowhards have never seen those brothers' faces.”

  “And if by chance they have?”

  She shrugged. “I don't know, lie. Tell them you’ve stretched an inch or grew out your hair. Blow a little smoke.”

  “And what if the actual brothers decide to show up?”

  “To a ball they haven't been invited to? Heh. I doubt it.”

  I sighed, trying to come to terms with all of this.

  “And I don't have to do any actual stealing myself, right?” I asked.

  “No stealing,” B said. “Trust me, if the Priest and I could do this, we would. But we're wanted by the Crown.”

  “So am I!”

  She laughed and gave my shoulder a little pat that I found slightly condescending.

  “Pocket, if you were anywhere near as wanted as the two of us are, I would've tossed you over the side of the ship by now.”