Assignment- London

by Craig A. Hart

  “Mysterious? Only insofar as you’ve not met yet. There’s not much mystery really, Dad. He’s just the most amazing man.”

  “He would have to be to earn the affection of Adabelle Fox. There are still at least a dozen broken-hearted Oxford men who sneak on the grounds at night to serenade outside your bedroom window, hoping maybe you’ll change your mind about them.”

  “Those were Oxford boys, Dad. Big difference.”

  “Well, they’re all sad old men now, thanks to you.”

  “Yes. ‘Adabelle the Ice Queen.’ Don’t think I didn’t hear the nickname.”

  “Fools and beggars, all of them.”

  “Oh, Dad. I’d love to chat all day, but Perry and Burke should be returning from their… meeting soon, and I think we’re doing a play in West End tonight.”

  “Lovely, although I hope it isn’t ‘The Lady Waits.’ Your mother dragged me to see that last month. It should have been called ‘Austin Waits - for This Horrible Show to End.’”

  Adabelle’s laughter was loud and long. “Dad, don’t ever change!”

  “Not much chance of that happening at this point. I’ll tell Mum you rang.”

  They said their goodbyes and Adabelle disconnected. Now she had to decide between shopping or having a drink. It was an ideal day to sip a cocktail outside one of the many pubs near their hotel. Sunshine was a rare commodity in London, and she meant to enjoy it.

  “Alright,” she said aloud. “A drink, then shopping!”

  Although Perry and Burke were in adamant agreement about the evils of physical exercise, the quick-step walk to the Good Samaritan was actually pleasant. The Velvet Glove would have made an excellent tour guide had he not chosen to be a murderer. Nonetheless, Perry was ready for a cold drink by the time they arrived.

  The bartender clearly was familiar with the VG, who he addressed as Mr. Smith, and began reaching for the wide bottle with a distinguished-looking, plainly lettered label “Boodles British Gin.”

  “One each for my friends as well, Stanley,” he told him.

  The pub was cozy, featuring a large chalkboard, which bragged that pub goers could watch “live football on the plasma.” As they carried their drinks to a quiet table, out of earshot from the few other patrons who, like the trio, were drinking early, at least by American standards, Burke thought. “So we’re friends now?” he asked.

  The Velvet Glove raised an eyebrow. “I guess that’s yet to be determined. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt.”

  “Burke is wary about befriending every decapitator he meets. Their ilk is a mixed bag at best.”

  Letting out a genuine laugh, the criminal nodded his head. “It’s true, Dapper. It’s true.”

  Perry went on. “So then, first order of business. We’re pretty sure that your real name is Alfred Fischer, and that you were well within your rights to begin using an alias. Gotta believe you took a poke or two to the eye for that when you were a lad in knickers.”

  “Yes. Yes, I did. Often. But never from the same chap twice.” He did not look at the two men as he took a drink of gin but came up from the pull smiling.

  “So you have me at a disadvantage. You are clearly more than just a psychopath, and I feel horrible at having misread you as a barrister. As grave an insult as I’ve ever hurled, I’m afraid.”

  Burke was noting that although the VG displayed many of the characteristics that had been on display during their previous pub encounter, he seemed to be a bit more relaxed and considerably less formal in his speech pattern than he’d been the night he’d threatened Burke Sr. Burke thought it interesting that a man whose criminal ways were known to two strangers should manage this level of comfort.

  “I believe I know what you’re thinking,” the Glove said, startling Burke out of his reverie.

  “Huh?” Burke said.

  “Oh, my. You are an eloquent one. But I believe you’re wondering about the fact that although you recently witnessed me kill three men, I’m comfortably sharing my favorite brand of gin with you now? Mmm? Yes?”

  “Maybe a little.”

  “Of course, a little, of course! Well, I’m not overly concerned because, of course, I have security camera footage of both of you removing a man’s head from its constituency. So I really don’t think I need to fear either of you flagging down a bobby.”

  That rankled Perry a little. It had occurred to him that a man with a collection like the VG’s would have security in his flat, but he felt it poor form to threaten them with it. Quickly demonstrating his skills of perception, the killer spoke to Perry now.

  “Oh, please, Dapper. Don’t be cross. I doubt very much that’s something you’d consider doing. I just thought it was important to make clear that although you seem to know at least a bit about me (and, I’m assuming, more incriminating things than just my given name), we are definitely starting out on level ground. Do you see?”

  Perry nodded, understanding the subtle power play. “I got you,” he said. “I’d probably have done the same.”

  The VG brightened once more. “Oh! I have no doubt about that! Let’s move past that unpleasantness, however. I’m sure you have questions for me, and I have many for you as well.”

  “Well, then, I propose we take turns asking,” said Burke. “And just to show I’m a good sport even after being threatened with blackmail, you can go first.”

  “And they say all Yanks are rude. That’s the problem with generalizations, don’t you agree?”

  “Is that your first question?” Perry asked, smiling mischievously.

  “Oh, I do like you, Dapper. I truly hope I don’t have to end up killing you! No, my first question is, may I ask your names? Although my habit of descriptive renaming is an important element of my constitution, I think it would be fair of you to tell me.”

  “Perry Hall,” Perry said, offering his hand across the table. The Velvet Glove shook it warmly.

  “James Burke, Jr.” Burke said. Perry thought that in all the years they’d known each other, that was the first time Burke had ever included the suffix when introducing himself. The effect on the Velvet Glove was instantaneous.

  “Eureka! So much explained with such a short sentence!” He offered his hand to Burke, and when the latter accepted, he pumped it almost frantically. “Of course you’d defend the man. Blood, as we all know and have all recently been reminded while washing it off, is thicker than water. Thicker than gin even.” He took another sip. “I must, in fairness, allow you to ask two questions now, as you’ve already answered another of mine!”

  “I’ll go first,” Burke said. “Why do you want to kill my father?”

  “Don’t you? He’s a bastard, James!”

  “I’ll admit I wouldn’t mind punching him in the mouth, but no, I don’t want to kill him. Please answer.”

  The Velvet Glove sighed. “I’m afraid the answer is rather pedestrian. I’ve met him before, although he obviously didn’t remember. Or maybe he did. He certainly reacted to my arrival in a way that would hint he did. It was a poker game five years ago, however, in Monaco. I was wearing a rather brilliant disguise, which is no doubt why he didn’t recall, if in fact he wasn’t merely acting stupid.”

  “So you want to kill Burke’s father because you lost money to him five years ago?”

  “That’s just the thing, Mr. Hall. I don’t lose. I never lose because I cheat.”

  “A trait you share with Dad, then,” Burke said.

  “That is just it, Mr. Burke. That is just it. I never fear playing a man, or woman, who is a better poker player than me. I only fear playing a better cheater. And in that regard, your father stands head and shoulders above anyone else I’ve met.”

  “Still seems a long time to hold a grudge over a few Pounds Sterling,” Perry added.

  “‘A few Pounds!’ I suspect the majority of the elder Burke’s lifestyle since that card game has been funded by the money he took from me that night.”

  “Alright, then. I’ll ask the second quest
ion,” Perry said. “Why were those men sent to kill you?”

  The Velvet Glove hesitated just a tick, seemingly trying to make up his mind about his answer. In fact, he was deciding how much more to reveal at all. He’d always worked best when his cards were well-hidden. Finally, he said, “You may have heard mention of a name during the minor scuffle with the three men who came calling?”

  “Minor scuffle! I’ll give you credit for being a master of understatement,” said Perry. “Yes. We caught the Wolf’s name being tossed about.”

  “Believe me, with regard to the scuffle, it could have been considerably less ‘minor’ had I felt a little more sporting. But you heard correctly. Is it a name with which you’re familiar?”

  Burke looked at the man sitting across from Perry and him. “Are you asking your next question before answering ours?”

  “He seems very committed to playing by the rules, mmm?” The Velvet Glove posed the question to Perry with a smile.

  “Indeed,” said Perry, choosing to leave that as his full answer for the moment.

  “No, James Jr., I’m not playing cards, and although I’ve been known to cheat at other endeavors, I was merely trying to determine how much of the Wolf’s long and illustrious history I needed to fill in for you.”

  “Let’s just say we’re familiar with him and his… background.”

  “Very well. Then I will tell you it was he who sent the three stooges to visit me.”

  “For what purpose?” Burke asked.

  “Ah! Who is failing to follow protocol now, James Jr.? Clearly it’s my turn to ask.”

  Burke nodded, although his face showed that he was not really enjoying this game.

  “My next question is simple. Why were you two calling?”

  “Foul!” cried Burke. “Already answered.”

  “Ah, yes. I recall. You were visiting on behalf of my longsuffering dear mother. Forgive the predominantly American colloquialism, but – bullshit.”

  Burke rankled, but Perry put a hand on his forearm. “What makes you say that?” the blonde agent asked.

  The Velvet Glove now ignored Perry and addressed Burke. “Do you see how difficult the question trade can be? If I shared your – temperament,” he said, making a somewhat sour face to express his opinion of Burke’s attitude, “I’d make a fuss over the fact that is not yet your turn to ask a question. But, Mr. Hall, my mother might ask an old friend to check on her beloved son, but I doubt she’d send a pair of Yanks. One would be more than annoying enough.”

  The table grew silent, as the two opposing sides realized that to make any real progress in this conversation, someone was going to have to reveal more than they might be comfortable with.

  When the silence was broken, it was Perry who spoke. “Your mother’s boss, Mr. Moorhead? We work for him also.”

  The Velvet Glove slapped his hand down on the table with enough force to cause the ice in the gin glasses to make noise. “And there it is!” he said with a beaming smile. “All is clear now! You are SpyCo agents!”

  Burke had all he could do to maintain an expression of indifference, but Perry let out a little chuckle. “I didn’t think your mother would have been able to work for J. Carlton Moore for as long as she has without you figuring that out.” When the Velvet Glove returned the wan smile and took a long sip of his Boodles, Perry went on. “And yet now that you know that, you continue to drink with us.”

  “Oh, Perry… uh – how rude of me. May I call you Perry?”

  Perry gave a single nod.

  “Perry, the fact that you are agents neither offends nor intimidates me. No, this revelation has had quite the opposite effect. If we can dispense with the alternating questions motif, I will explain everything. Would that be to your liking?”

  Both men answered “Yes” simultaneously.

  “Very well. In that case, we will need more gin.” He caught the barkeep’s eye and held up three fingers. A moment later, a trio of fresh drinks were delivered to the table. The Velvet Glove thanked the young man and returned his attention to the agents.

  “Ultimately, it’s all about Zmaj.”

  12

  Adabelle thought of the many things she loved about London. Unlike her father, she felt visiting the capital wasn’t automatically going to be horrible, but he was correct that there was much about the city that was… imperfect. Far too crowded, far too dirty, and even though much had been done to transform Whitechapel from the slum it had been in the 1880s, there was still too much crime.

  But at the moment, none of that mattered. She was seated outside The Oliver Conquest on Leman St., a little over a kilometer from the Good Samaritan, and although she did not know the boys were drinking at the same time, it was they who were on her mind.

  Specifically, she was thinking about Burke. Like Perry, she was concerned that Burke was so insistent that Lyndsey was still alive. Adabelle had peered over the cliff from which she’d fallen, and to her thinking, there was no possibility of survival. But she understood why he would foster such an illusion.

  She had grown very close to Lyndsey in a relatively short amount of time. It was good that they had become such good friends, as the amount of time Perry and Burke spent together when not on separate assignments was almost annoying. Lyndsey had more than once called them “the thing with two handsome faces,” and in many ways, it was like they were conjoined. They’d doubled dated in New York many times, and on more than one occasion, Adabelle and Lyndsey had shared many a surreptitious smile or quiet laugh at the boys’ antics.

  So for Burke, who clearly loved Lyndsey as much as Perry loved her, letting go was a monumental task, and one that thus far he’d not been up to.

  She let out a long sigh and took a sip of her perfectly mixed vodka-cranberry. As she looked around her, she saw a double decker approaching, then groaned when she realized it was one of the open-top tour bus varieties. That meant it would be packed with macabre Americans who wanted to see the haunts of the notorious Ripper. As much as she loved Perry and Burke, she could not let go of the often well-founded belief among Brits that their Yankee cousins were on the whole a bunch of louts. The sort that rode tour buses tended to be among the worst of the lot.

  So as the bus drew near, she started to look away, but as it passed, her eyes snapped back to the sun-drenched upper-deckers, for sitting next to the rail was a woman who appeared to be clutching an electric guitar, or at least a case for one. But it wasn’t the guitar that caught her eye. It was the woman. Blonde and beautiful, wearing dark sunglasses and trying to look less touristy the others on the bus, she looked more like Lyndsey Archer than Venus did herself, Adabelle thought. As the vehicle rolled by and she lost sight of the woman, she looked at her drink and shook her head, as if to clear cobwebs. But it was her first cocktail, and she wasn’t prone to seeing things.

  “Easy, Addy-Girl,” she told herself, taking advantage of being alone to speak out loud. “You were just thinking about her. And they do say everyone has a doppelganger.”

  Still, she found herself about to reach inside her clutch to retrieve her phone, to call her friend to say, “Venus, I just saw your twin.”

  But of course, there was no one to answer that call. She downed the rest of the vodka and decided to head east and start some serious shopping.

  Lyndsey spotted Adabelle long before the dark-skinned agent had looked up from what appeared to be a deep reverie. Her trained mind ran through her short-list of options almost automatically. Her first inclination was to move to the opposite bank of seats, putting a little more distance between herself and her friend. But she reasoned, rightly, that the movement would likely attract Adabelle’s attention instantly.

  Her second choice, and the one she most wanted to pick, would be to wave to Adabelle and let her know she was alive. It might not be fair to Burke for her to let someone else know before he did, but she knew it would be infinitely easy to face Adabelle.

  But Moore had been adamant. For his plan to work, she nee
ded to be dead. The Wolf, if he had any inkling he was working with a SpyCo agent, would kill her in a heartbeat. Try to kill her, she corrected herself.

  So she went with option three, which was to sit tight and appear like another, slightly less obnoxious tourist among a group that made taking that tack far too easy. As the bus rolled by The Oliver Conquest, she kept her eyes forward, even as the drunken college boy in the seat ahead of her waved his arms at Adabelle and catcalled her.

  In her peripheral vision, she could see Adabelle’s expression of surprise. Just as the bus moved to where she could no longer see her friend, it seemed to her that Adabelle had looked away, with maybe a head-shake as she did. Good. That would indicate she had seen her but didn’t believe what her eyes were showing. She’ll pass it off as having seen my twin, Lyndsey thought as the bus rolled down Leman Street. Or my ghost.

  “It is my understanding, based upon the sorts of things that one hears when one knows how and where to listen, that SpyCo recently had a run-in with Zmaj in Ireland. I won’t ask you to confirm or deny. Even now I sense your lips are tight. But what you may not have known is that the Wolf had been in league with Zmaj and was using his own pipeline to bring former IRA thugs into Zmaj’s army.” The Velvet Glove paused as he noticed Burke’s eyebrow raise at the use of the word. “Don’t think me guilty of hyperbole, James Jr.

  “Zmaj is mad, as I would assume you already know, but he enjoys a focused madness that is very dangerous for the object of that focus. And without a doubt, his laser beam is pointed directly at SpyCo. It is his intention to not only hurt your agency, he’s looking to rip out its heart. After gathering together the men for whom Zmaj had hired him to recruit, he turned on the Wolf, having him shot. As fate would have it, the shot had barely stopped echoing when Zmaj was called to attend to a matter of great consequence, and in his haste, he ordered the Wolf’s body be disposed of, and cleared the hall of his castle. He, along with his new recruits, were gone by the time two of his castle henchmen approached the prone body of the Wolf, who naturally had the foresight when dealing with a man as unhinged as his ersatz employer to wear a Kevlar vest under his clothing. He happily leapt to his feet and made short work of the two men, tossing them into Zmaj’s shark tank.”