The Reluctant Assassin

by Eoin Colfer

  “Apologies,” said Charismo. “Sometimes Barnum forgets his place.”

  Chevie jerked herself upright in the chair. “Nice desk. Who gave you that? The spirits of cheap and vulgar?”

  “I shall not be manipulated to anger,” said Charismo. “The great Charismo rises above base emotions.”

  “How about Terry Carter? What does he do?”

  Charismo toyed with a letter opener in the shape of a dagger. Or perhaps it was a dagger in the shape of a dagger. “Terry Carter is dead. He died almost thirty years ago, when I arrived here.”

  Chevie noticed that Riley was not reacting to any of this and seemed to be humming a Beatles song.

  “What did you do to the boy?”

  Charismo waved his fingers as if to say Hardly anything. “Oh, him. I gave him a few drops of sodium thiopental and a little deadly nightshade. I favor it as a mix. You speak the truth and then die. Don’t worry about the lad. Riley will drop off to sleep and never wake up, which is about the best way to go in Victorian London. You’re going to adore it.”

  Chevie struggled against her bonds, but they had been tied by a man who tied things up as part of his job description.

  “The great Tibor Charismo. You’re nothing but a common murderer.”

  Charismo seemed genuinely offended. “No. Absolutely not. I am the greatest human being since Leonardo da Vinci, whom I suspect may also have been a WARP veteran. I write, I compose, I see. In the twentieth century I was nothing, a Mob banker. Here, I am the darling of high society. Why on God’s green earth would I ever go back?”

  “I see how it could happen,” said Chevie. “You knew the Mob would track little Terry down eventually. No matter how many of them you put away with your testimony, there would always be more wiseguys. But in Victorian London, you could really be somebody.”

  “Exactly,” said Charismo. “And do you know how? I have a photographic memory. Everything I ever read, saw, or even heard, I remember forever. Simple as that.”

  “Genius,” said Chevie, half meaning it.

  Charismo rose to his feet. “Queen Victoria herself listens to my advice. As soon as the Feds told me I was moving to Victorian London, I read everything I could about any subject I thought might be useful. I know things about world politics, sporting events, simple inventions, fashion trends. It’s a gold mine.”

  Chevie took a few breaths to calm herself. “Okay, Terry, listen to me. Just let us go. Give the kid an antidote. Don’t become a murderer on top of everything else.”

  “Become a murderer?” said Charismo laughing. “This is Victorian London. Even with my gifts, you have to carve your way to the top, or hire a big strong Barnum to do it for you. When I found Barnum, he was bleeding to death in Newgate prison; now he is loyal to me unto the grave.”

  “Really?”

  “No. I hired him in the pub, but I plan to use the Newgate story in my memoirs.”

  “You don’t have to kill the boy, Charismo. I’m the law here. He’s just a kid.”

  Charismo smiled, perching on the edge of the desk. “Oh, he’s the one I need to kill most of all. You still haven’t put it together fully, Agent, have you?”

  “Oh, I think I understand most of it,” said Chevie. “It’s a pretty basic tale of human greed. Little Terry Carter decides he likes it in the Victorian era and so hires Albert Garrick to cut any ties to the future, specifically Agent Riley and his family.”

  Charismo showed no remorse. “That was not my fault. Bill Riley was not supposed to marry anyone. I was meant to be his priority; but, no—Agent Riley decides to fall in love, so I had no alternative but to unleash Garrick on his entire family. No loose ends.”

  Chevie looked at him. “But you needed Bill Riley’s Timekey?”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Charismo. “Garrick delivered it to me without ever suspecting what it was. How could he? All programmed and ready to suck Bill back to the twentieth century—the twenty-first now, I suppose. I have it secured safely, just in case I need to escape this time zone. There will always be medical procedures—chemotherapy, for example—that I may need to avail myself of. That is the only reason I have not disassembled the portals. Of course, I only recently found out where the portals were.”

  “Well, poor little Mob banker Terry wouldn’t be told the locations. Information like that would be strictly need-to-know.”

  “Precisely. On the night I arrived, they hustled me out of there with a sack over my head. Can you believe it? In my condition?”

  When he said the word condition, Charismo touched his mask lightly, and Chevie wondered again what precisely was under there.

  “So, even with Agent Riley out of the way, you still needed to find Charles Smart and whatever portals there might be; otherwise you could never be sure that they wouldn’t come after you.”

  “The alternative was keeping a low profile,” explained Charismo. “And what was the point in doing that?”

  “Yeah,” said Chevie. “Why be a nobody in two centuries?”

  “You’re doing awfully well so far,” said Charismo coldly, adjusting his devil’s mask. “Would you like to continue? Or should I kill you now?”

  “It takes a while to build up your funds, but as soon as you can afford it you cultivate a relationship with Otto Malarkey, because only the Battering Rams have the network you need to find Charles Smart and the portals.”

  “All I had was a sketch of Smart, which I drew from memory, and a description of a basement with a bed mounted on a metal plate. Not much to go on.”

  Chevie took over the narrative. “It took years, but eventually the Rams found that Smart was actually living in this century in Bedford Square. And they followed him to Half Moon Street.”

  “I kept him under surveillance, as you Feds might say, until I was satisfied that Smart was the only one using the portals. No one was looking for him or coming for me.”

  “And you wanted to keep it that way. You wanted sole control of the wormhole, so Charles Smart had to go. And that’s when you contacted Garrick again, to finish the job he began a decade ago.”

  “Yes. After all, my freedom to evolve was at stake.”

  Charismo leaned forward and parted Chevie’s hair with his letter opener. “I had forgotten how much effort it is speaking with my fellow Americans. So confrontational.” “You made one mistake, Terry,” said Chevie.

  “Oh, I don’t think so. After all, you are prostrate before me, as is the entire city.”

  “Garrick. You should never have hired him. He can’t be controlled.”

  Charismo covered his smug smile with a kerchief. “Believe me, Garrick has been controlled into an early grave. Otto Malarkey has seen to that. He was the last direct connection between me and the future.”

  “Until we came along.”

  “Otto was supposed to kill anyone who arrived at either portal, but it is in his nature to try to squeeze a few extra sovereigns from every situation. Luckily I have a man in the Rams who is loyal to my gold, and he informed me there was activity in the Half Moon house. Can you imagine my surprise when one of the fugitives from Half Moon Street bore a striking resemblance to William Riley? It must be a coincidence, I told myself, and I almost believed it, until the boy himself revealed to me that his father was an FBI agent. So young Riley here is the only wild card in this game, and he is, as you can see, not really playing anymore.”

  Charismo clapped his hands, which seemed to be something of a trademark. “And so, the game is over, and Charismo has triumphed.”

  Riley moaned and spasmed in his chair.

  “Come on, Carter!” said Chevie. “Cure the boy! Let him go. What harm can he do to you?”

  “None whatsoever. Little Riley is harmless. And soon that will be a permanent condition.”

  Chevie’s pulse pounded in her forehead. “That boy idolized you, and you’ve killed him.”

  Charismo fluttered his kerchief. “Well, you know what they say? A person should never meet his heroes. And I ha
ven’t killed him yet, he’s simply dreaming. The poison is still in his stomach. He won’t die for hours.”

  Riley was half-dreaming, and he would have loved to lose himself entirely to slumber, but something was glinting in his eye. The boy squinted, attempting to focus, but he could see nothing, except the small shining object on Chevie’s finger. It was blurred and surrounded by a golden nimbus, until Charismo moved in front of the window and blocked the sunlight, bringing the golden object into relief.

  It was a horseshoe ring.

  A horseshoe ring. There was a man with a horseshoe ring. Mr. Carter.

  In his dream state Riley was closer to his visions; he remembered that his father had protected the man wearing this ring, and this was enough to wake him slightly, just in time to hear Charismo say, “That was not my fault. Bill Riley was not supposed to marry. I ordered Garrick to kill Agent Riley and his precious family, no loose ends.”

  Bill Riley, thought Riley groggily. My dad.

  Riley could not fathom the circumstances, but he had heard a confession, and the ring made him believe it was the truth.

  With superhuman effort, he breathed himself back to the surface of consciousness. It took several moments, but finally he had the energy to act. Riley dragged himself from the chair and flailed at Charismo, striking out clumsily.

  “Oh, please,” tutted Charismo. “This is embarrassing. I am embarrassed for both of you, really.”

  He placed a hand on Riley’s forehead and tipped him over backward. Riley fell awkwardly, knocking over a marble-topped table and sending the Farspeak skittering to the end of its wire.

  “Now look what you have done!” said Charismo, mildly irritated.

  “You animal!” shouted Chevie, lurching from the chair; but she was well trussed and succeeded only in toppling herself onto the floor, cracking her head on a gryphon wing on the way down.

  Charismo rolled his eyes. “Oh, now look, there is blood on Tibor’s special desk. I shall be exceedingly glad when you are dead, Miss Savano. I had hoped to interrogate you as I did the boy, perhaps learn how the world has turned since my day, but now I think I shall forgo that pleasure and proceed directly to the endgame.”

  Chevie spat blood on the rug. “What about your queen? How would she feel about all these murders?”

  “Old Vic?” said Charismo. “I do not care a fig for Her rheumatic Majesty, beyond the fact that her patronage secures my status. At any rate, she will die confused at the dawn of the new century, and her daughter the following year, which will ring the closing bell on the house of Hanover.”

  “And what of your precious Duke of Westminster?”

  Charismo laughed bitterly. “That old coot will be gone before Christmas. Would that he should survive another twenty years, as it is extremely convenient to have the ear of the richest man in Britain. But no, the outdoor life will sow the seeds of bronchitis, and that shall do the duffer in.”

  Charismo knelt and tousled Chevie’s hair. “Do you know, I would have preferred to have kept you alive. We could have spoken of the future. I have so many plans. One, for example, is that I could change the course of wars. Imagine how different World War One would be if the Germans were warned not to torpedo the Lusitania. America would never enter the war, and by 1918 England would be a German colony, with Tibor Charismo very nicely placed in its court. That is just one of my many ideas.”

  “You’re mad,” said Chevie, trying hard to keep Charismo’s attention on her.

  “Mad, delusional, comatose. Who cares? I am happy, and I intend to remain happy for as long as possible.”

  Charismo dinged a service bell on his desk and Barnum entered, still a little sulky from his recent dismissal.

  “Oh, you wants me back in the room, does you, master?”

  “Don’t be petulant, Barnum. Your boxer’s countenance does not suit the expression.”

  “Very good, master. What’s the drill with these two? I was thinking a quick stab over the kitchen sink, for to catch the blood, then into a sack and roly-poly down the embankment.”

  Charismo tick-tocked his letter opener, considering this. “No, Barnum. I want these two to disappear entirely. Not so much as a hair left.”

  “Then there are two avenues we can advance along. One, I has an old army pal with a pig farm by Newport. Pigs will eat from crown to toe, brain and bone, makes no differ to a pig.”

  “I think not,” said Charismo. “The last time you tramped pig dung all over my carpets. What is our second choice?”

  “Burning,” said Barnum simply. “I chop ’em in the kitchen and feed ’em slow into the furnace. Takes a few days and is grisly labor, but once the job is done, all the king’s horses couldn’t put these two bad eggs together again.”

  Charismo giggled. “Nicely put, Mr. Barnum. You do make me smile. The furnace it is, but do your stabbing business in the kitchen.”

  “Very good, master,” said Barnum, and he slung Chevie over one shoulder. “Can you manage for an hour while I make a start on the butchering?”

  “You go ahead,” said Charismo magnanimously. “I shall be perfectly fine. . . . Oh, perhaps you might bring some more cakes when you have finished cutting. Tibor is peckish.”

  “More cakes. Of course, master.”

  Charismo winked at Chevie. “Master. I get shivers, every time.”

  To Tibor’s utter surprise, Chevie had enough spirit for one last comment. She looked the WARP witness directly in the eye and said, “You talk too much.”

  A statement not just of opinion but of fact, as it would turn out.

  Barnum swung Riley by the belt in an arc toward his other shoulder. However, as soon as the manservant’s hand was free, the poisoned boy somehow found the strength to roll off and land on Charismo’s chest.

  “Murderer!” he slurred. “You killed my family.”

  “Eeek!” said Charismo. “Get him off me, Barnum. He could have lice.”

  Had Riley been more alert, he might have been able to land a painful or even fatal blow, but in his drugged state it was all he could do to squirm a little and pat Charismo’s chest like an infant.

  “C’mere, boy,” said Barnum, and he reclaimed his prisoner with strong fingers, tossing him back onto his free shoulder.

  “Take care, Barnum,” said a shaken Charismo, checking his mask. “Even a dying dog can be dangerous.”

  “Sorry, master,” said Barnum, inserting the toe of his boot into a crack in the door and nudging it open. “I should have taken more care that you were not overpowered by the incapacitated child that you had just poisoned to death.”

  Charismo glared after his manservant as he left, wondering if perhaps he should begin docking his wages for insolence.

  Barnum bundled the condemned pair into the dumbwaiter in the adjoining room and winched them down toward the kitchen. As the elevator dropped into its shaft, Chevie heard Charismo’s voice drift through: “You are such a slacker, Barnum. The dumbwaiter, honestly.”

  The small compartment creaked slowly toward the basement, and Riley moaned and tried to stretch, which was impossible in the confined space. The air was heated, the walls stank of meat, and the box seemed incapable of sustaining their weight. Though she could not see it, Chevie felt the shaft yawn below them, waiting for the box to pop its cord and drop down and down.

  “Hey, Riley,” Chevie said, nudging the boy’s leg with her elbow. “Are you okay?”

  Riley was not alert enough to reply.

  I wonder, has the poison begun to do it work? No. Charismo said he had hours left. There is still time.

  The dumbwaiter came to an abrupt halt, and the trapped pair could do nothing but breathe recycled air and wait until Barnum pulled them out. Chevie was first.

  He tossed her on the wooden worktop like a side of beef, then tied on an apron and ran his fingers across a row of kitchen knives.

  It’s funny, thought Chevie. I am not afraid. That is because I still believe we will get out of this alive, in spite of all t
he evidence.

  Barnum selected the largest knife, with a stained bone handle and serrated blade.

  “Ah, Julia,” he said to the knife. “You knew I would choose you.”

  He talks to his knives, thought Chevie. I bet Garrick would love this guy.

  Barnum froze suddenly, like a deer that has heard a sound not meant for the forest.

  What does he hear?

  Then Chevie heard it too: a trundle of carriages, but also the clatter of marching feet.

  “What now?” said Barnum, then cocked his head, waiting for the commotion to rumble past. But it did not. Instead, the cavalcade came to an abrupt stop outside Charismo’s residence.

  “Next door,” muttered Barnum to himself. “Surely the militia have business next door?”

  But it was not next door, as was made abundantly clear by a barked command from outside: “Halt! Charismo residence, blue door! Ready the cannon.”

  “Cannon?” said Barnum, in a voice that was surely two octaves above his usual register.

  The manservant dropped his beloved blade, drew a revolver from inside his coat, and raced across the kitchen and through the service doors.

  The doors had not yet finished flapping when a thundering explosion rattled the very foundations, channeling compressed air through the house’s stairwells and passageways. The blast threw Barnum and his gun back through the service doors. The six-shooter pinwheeled across the kitchen, shattering a wall tile with its butt, then skittered into a sink.

  Barnum himself was not in good shape. His waistcoat had been shredded, and a hundred small wounds on his chest allowed his life’s blood to leak onto the wooden floor.

  Barnum had seen enough of death to know that his number was up. He turned his gaze laboriously to where Chevie lay on the worktop.

  He attempted to speak, but before he could get it out, a final rattle signaled his departure for the next world.

  Chevie rolled herself from the worktop, landing with a thump on her shoulder, which did not break.

  Lucky break, or lucky non-break.