“Yep, your missus is the biggest roundheel on the Hill. Takes it up the
There was no way of knowing what’d been planned for us. I couldn’t see a Liberal Senator having us killed, unless he learned we were Tories. A good beating was more the Grit style. Nevertheless, Jack’s strategy of provoking the man didn’t seem the soundest. Even if Jack had a knife in his boot we still had to cut ourselves free. The Senator’s dog scrambled to a corner and seemed to start laughing. The Senator, breathing heavily, placed his hands on the table before us. I could see his swarthy skin darkening with fury.
“Perhaps I am making a mistake with you, Monsieur Jack. The police will perhaps be interested in you and your friend here. Some information anonymous, I think.”
“What good’ll that do you?” asked Jack. “You were the Minister of Customs when this started. You think that because you’re in the Red Chamber King’ll protect you if I start to spill?”
The Senator motioned to his thug and the helpmeet came over and punched Jack hard in the stomach. Jack buckled and gagged. The goon blew his knuckles and turned to me. The Senator patted the thug’s shoulder and brushed him away.
“This I find distasteful, as I do your treatment of Charles Trudeau. But you are fortunate today, I think. I am merciful. It is simple: you and your comrade will leave the city. You are allowed to live a little more,
It was possible. My left hand was free and I could simply reach out and pick up my revolver. They’d been damned careless and arrogant, mocking us in our powerlessness. It was the same mistake we’d made with crafty Charlie Trudeau. Jack gulped air and the Senator loomed above me. I didn’t like his smell, rosewater and dog intermingled. My mouth was parched and my head still repercussed with the blow that’d knocked me out. The dog started pissing against a rotting wall, distracting the Senator and his tough.
“Rex!” the fat man barked.
Very cleanly I picked up the Webley with my left hand and pulled back the hammer with my thumb. The fat man froze. The tough backed up against the kitchen wall. Jack laughed, and slowly the Senator joined him in a baritone.
“You will not shoot me,” he said.
“You’re right.”
I pointed the barrel at Rex. The terrier came to me, interested.
“An Englishman would never harm an innocent creature,” the Senator said, his eyes widening.
“I’m Irish,” I said.
I pointed the barrel at the tough and fired. He dropped to the ground screaming:
With eyes screwed shut he grasped at his upper thigh. Lucky bugger. I’d aimed below the belt buckle. The dog skittered away in fear.
“You’re next after all,” I told the Senator. “Cut Jack free.”
The fat man’s skin had paled beneath his freckling. His dog and tough both whimpered. Smoke and a cordite reek hung in the close air. If the police caught me and I wanted to pass a paraffin test I’d have to scrub my face and hands with eau de cologne or an abrasive soap. The Senator moved stiffly to the countertop and found a rusty knife.
Awkwardly I hopped the chair around to keep the Senator in my line of fire. With thick, stupid fingers he sawed at Jack’s bonds. Partially free, Jack took the knife and finished the job. He stood, stretched, and gently prodded the Senator with his index finger.
“Get in the corner with your dog,” Jack said.
The Senator complied and scooped Rex up. The tough was shivering and putting pressure on his thigh where dark blood oozed out between his fingers.
“Hurry up,” I said. “We don’t want a shooting match.”
Jack cut me loose. I stood and felt my body itch and tingle upon its release. Jack’s face swelled and my head was logy and sore, ears ringing, copper in my mouth, bladder fit to burst. I leaned over the man I’d shot.
“You’ll need a doctor,” I said.
His shivering redoubled. I’d used the revolver at last, a prophecy come true. The Senator tried to make himself small and cradled his bitch. Jack picked up his own shooting iron and turned to the door. We heard the hard pounding of feet up the back stairs. More trouble there. Jack went over, laughed, and snapped his fingers in the fat man’s face.
With that we scarpered. I started slipping down the stairs halfway down and rode the treads on my heels, turning backward at the door and bashing out onto the sidewalk. I landed on my coccyx but felt nothing save dizziness and exhilaration. Jack mounted the Auburn and pushed in the keys. A long black saloon ’car with chauffeur was parked opposite but the driver did nothing. He’d heard the shot and seen two bloodied men with guns come tumbling out of the building and decided his salary didn’t include getting plugged. Wise bird.
Jack started the engine, choked into gear, added essence, and swung around into the black ’car, the fender screeching across the enamel of the Senator’s ride. I jumped on the running board and waved my Webley.
“The South’ll rise again!
Jack roared down Chambord and I crawled in a window. Perhaps my cerebellum had been damaged by the blow I’d received. I was having trouble thinking, and everything was hilarious: Jack lighting a cigaret while driving with his knees, the sign on a storefront of a gap-toothed idiot sucking up spruce beer with a straw, the startled looks of pedestrians as we rocketed along the quiet street.
My hands only started shaking as I broke open the cylinder of my revolver and removed the spent cartridge. Jack was driving erratically, weaving along and finally stalling out by Lafontaine Park. We traded places and I turned right on Rachel and then left to line up with the clock tower at Victoria Quay. We rolled along downhill and crossed St. Catherine, then worried our way in low gear westerly to Griffintown and Jack’s hideout. I parked the motor on a dismal block behind a pile of empty chicken coops and kept the keys. The Auburn looked out of place in this part of town but we were too walloped to do much else. At a corner store I bought a bag of cracked ice and from under the counter a bottle of overproof rum. Jack sat on the curb in front of the building, his head in his hands.
“Come on,” I said.
I helped him through the entranceway and up to the third floor. Jack managed to pull out the large key and open the door. He made it to the bed and fell into a swoon. I collapsed into a chair, where I sat still for a spell and blinked out.
LATER ON I heard a voice.
“Charlie got his revenge,” Jack said.
“And how,” I groaned.
“Should’ve known better, dealing with a lawyer.”
“He was ahead of us,” I said. “It was a trap.”
“Didn’t give him enough credit.”
Jack nursed his face with ice balled up in a stained cloth. I lifted the rum bottle, cracked its seal, and added melting ice from the waxpaper bag to a chipped cup. George V’s own. Dusk now upon us. Jack took out his medicine and rubbed cocaine powder on his gums to numb the pain. I sniffed a little for renewed pep. We were well-hid in this bolt-hole but it felt as though the other shoe was about to drop. What I’d liked least about the Senator’s talk was his threat of the police; they’d been far too absent throughout our series of crimes. Jack and I had operated in a vacuum, abhorrent in nature. Bootlegging, armed robbery, and now a shooting. The man might bleed to death. Testing my sentiments I was interested to discover that I didn’t care. Sensation had been dimmed by the shock of my beating, further blunted by the drug and drink.
“Do you think the Senator’ll set the dogs on us?” I asked.
“No. His hands’re too dirty.”
“What about the shipment tomorrow?”
