by Duncan, Hal
Now the Waiftaker General he rallies himself. Bold and defiant he is as he steps forward, fists up for a fight. An old man and some scruff, he’s thinking. He looks from one to the other, both right close now.
—Years passed, and that boy growed up to be a man, says Yapper, inherited his father’s office and all. But that was all Scallion had to tell, he said, ’cept that if I ever met him I should pass on a message.
Only now Reakesack stands far bolder than the buzzard. Tall.
—Sod it, says he. I’ll do it myself.
•
And Reakesack punches the Waiftaker General right in the gob, spins him around in place, knocks him so hard, why, all the letters of the name Lionel J. Reakesack go whirling up into the air, and when they comes back down, you knows what they spell, dontcha: Rake Jake Scallion!
Why, he plants his punch on that beady-eyed bugger square as the Stamp were pressed on his chest, breaking beak and busting teeth; and the Waiftaker General, he gets the message loud and clear as it whirls him off his feet in a stagger and crumple to the floor.
•
—Scallion, he hisses, blood bubbling at his lips.
The old hawker looks a foot taller now and a fair few decades younger as he peels off the straggly beard and shnoz, sends his hat sailing off through the air with a flick of his wrist, wig and spectacles too. Why, even with the greasepaint, glue and grime as still disguises him, Rake Jake looks more beau than beggar now.
What’s that, scrag? Well, of course not. Come on! Yer didn’t think we’d be having an actual money-grubbing, child-slaving Jew in this here fabble, did yer? Not bleeding likely.
•
No, Rake Jake just knowed that him playing Fagan Shylockowitz were the best way to work the Waiftaker General: give him a hook-nose to hook his hate to, so’s he don’t think to sniff too deep. It ain’t always a matter of fooling a mark into trusting yer, is what Jake says to Yapper, see? Sometimes it’s a matter of fooling them into distrusting yer… but distrusting yer the wrong way, for the wrong reason.
Tell the truth, there were likely a pinch of bitter joke to it for Jake too. The Jake is short for Jacob, after all.
• 18
—So we heard you was looking for Whelp, says Rake Jake Scallion. Thought we’d arrange a meeting.
—Why? says the Waiftaker General He don’t say no more than that, but they can tell as he’s asking about it all. Why the whole charade? Why the Scruffian should care about the dog? Why the Rake should care to help the Scruffian? Why they’d risk a Scrubbing for this savage thing snarling on the other side of the door? Why they’d play this game as will surely bring a terrible reckoning upon them? Why, if any harm should come to him… ?
—Why?
•
Scallion crouches down to him then, leans in close.
—If yer asking as I got the Stamp before yer time, says he, so why should I hold it against you personal like? Well, as far as I’m concerned, mate, one Waiftaker General is all Waiftaker Generals. But more than that? You don’t get my story no more than you get his. Know this though: the only reason I’ll not kill you, no matter the villainy you were begotten in, is you’re as much your mother’s as your father’s son. And she would have loved you, I’m sure… had she lived.
•
And now Yapper hunkers down, steadying himself with the cane.
—And if yer asking why we’d risk the wrath poured out the last time a Cuntfucker General came a cropper, he says, well, yer ought to know we has a little leverage amongst the Lords these days, peers with… peccadilloes they’d rather keep shtum. And with you to blame for the Beast and all… only reason I ain’t bashing yer fucking brains in with this stick of yours is, the way I sees it, it wouldn’t be right to let yer die when it’s living is how most Scruffians suffer.
•
It weren’t quite then that the Waiftaker General felt fear for the first time in his life, as he realised all his stickmen didn’t matter a squittery shite. It weren’t as he looked into his enemies’ eyes and saw not an ounce of fear in Scruffian nor Rake. It weren’t as they snatched him, sudden and rough, hurled him into the centre of the room, knowing that neither was feared to finish him; for they’d both said they wasn’t gonna. It were when Yapper spoke his next words, cool and quiet.
—But neither of us speaks for Whelp, says he.
• 19
The bloodcurdling howl that rang out across Old Nichol Rookery then, when Yapper and Jake opened the door to let the Beast of Buskerville meet its maker… the terrible sound that chilled to the bone everyone as heard it, woke babes as was sleeping and made it as they’d not sleep for two days after, the sound as give even grown men screaming nightmares for weeks… well, only Yapper and Jake knows for sure which of the two that horrible sound come from, and they ain’t saying. Ask em and they just smiles a little smile of mischief, sneaky fuckers.
•
—Maybes it come from the monster, Yapper’ll say, from that dread fiend as still stalks the backstreets and alleys of Old London Town to this very day, that vicious brute as any man in his right mind would surely put down for the mad dog as he is. Or then again, maybes it come from old Whelp.
—We was already halfways out the door, Jake’ll say. Giving Whelp some space to play a little with his new chew toy. Giving him some time to… renew his acquaintance with his old master, savvy?
—All’s the time in the world, Yapper’ll say.
•
Yeah, that’s right, scrag, you heard right. Three whole—
What? Dunno. Nobody knows how Whelp kept him alive that long. Maybes the dog brung him dead rats or summat, but I ain’t sure how that could work; don’t rightly know why the Waiftaker General wouldn’t leg it if Whelp even left the room. Yapper has some crazy idea as Whelp bit off his own—cause it would’ve grown back—but that seems bonkers! No, it’s a mystery. Ain’t nobody even knows why Whelp kept him alive for that matter. Maybes he were thinking like Yapper, that killing were too quick.
•
All’s we know is Whelp played guard-dog to his prisoner, kept him caged in mortal terror—and no small amount of pain most likely—till one day… one day…
He let him go.
Yep, just like that. He just upped and went offsky, out the door and away, leaving the Waiftaker General to cower in his own filth till he got up the courage to crawl out of the room, and down the stairs, and out into the night.
Although there’s some as say not all of him got let go, right enough, that old Whelp kept a few… souvenirs.
• 20
Oh, yeah, there’s some as say that the Waiftaker General, he’s short a few fingers now under his fancy kidskin gloves, or that his lanky-limbed stride is… a little ungainly and lolloping now cause half his toes ain’t on his feet no more. Or on account of him being one bollock shy of a pair, perhaps.
Ain’t nobody knows but the Waiftaker General and the Beast of Buskerville himself what that dog done to him in all the time he was prisoner. And it seems to me as ain’t neither of em really gots the words to tell that fabble.
•
This much we does know though. When he finally staggered out of Old Nichol, that night, so they says, every hair on the Waiftaker General’s head were white as the driven snow, from the fear that dog had struck in him. And whatever the scars he might have in places as can’t be seen, that there hair ain’t the only sign of it. Maybes he’s hiding something more, as they says, like as a Stamp can be hid by a buttoned-up shirt. But yer can see the fear as in a nipper’s flinch at a raised fist.
Fixed in him.
•
Maybes some madness too, I reckons. See, it weren’t the hideous stumbling state of him as made the passers-by recoil in horror as he staggered and crawled the long way back, by a route as didn’t really need to be a tenth as long, to the Institute. No, it werent even all the blood and shit filthing his mauled, naked form as made them shove him away when he tried to grab em by the lapels. I
t were the ungodly yowling as he clawed and pawed at em.
Cause he weren’t talking the Queen’s English now, but the Beast’s Dog.
•
It would be peachy to think that were the end of the Waiftaker General for good, right then and there, but sadly it ain’t so, scrags. Stories like his ain’t ended so easy. No, he went offsky for a good long while, but… well, he’s had a whole lot of years to mend his mind since then. And he ain’t mended his ways at all, the fucker.
Still, you mind how old Whelp, he put a fear in him as’ll never mend, and if yer ever has a run-in with that fucker…
You just gives him a little growl, hear?