The Hangman's Revolution (4 page)

Riley tugged a slim leather-bound volume from his pants pocket. He had destroyed many of Garrick’s possessions, but this handwritten
Guide to Magicks & Illusion
was a priceless inheritance of daily practical use.

Also, it cheered Riley to think that Garrick’s ghost would shrivel with horror at the notion of his notebook’s being consulted by the one who had banished him from this earth.

“
‘Chapter one,
’
” he read.
“
‘Magic of the theatrical kind, being very separate from actual conjuring, has seven basic elements.’ Seven, Robert Winkle. Trot them out, if you please.”

“Seven,” repeated Bob. “You said no testing today, guv, on account of the grand reopening.”

“No, I never did. Seven.”

“Seven.” Bob was currently Riley’s assistant, but his dearest wish was to twirl his own wand. However, to do this, he would have to step up his rote learning, and
rote
learning was not Bob’s strong suit. He put his fingers to his temples and stared out into the seats, the very picture of a mentalist.

“Well, misdirection is first. The bones in the cemetery know that much.”

“Misdirection,” said Riley. “We don’t want the punters peeping where we don’t want them peeping.”

“Then the ditch. Dumping what we doesn’t need the marks spying, like the Rams do with corpses at Caversham Lock.”

“Disposal,” corrected Riley. “We ain’t a criminal gang dealing in dead bodies, just doves and the like. Next?”

Bob chewed a thumbnail. “I know this, bossman. It’s the conceal, ain’t it?”

Riley rubbed his hands together until a rose sprouted from the fingertips. “The conceal, or the palm. Hiding an object in an apparently empty hand.”

Bob’s jaw dropped so far you might think Riley had pulled an elephant from a tulip bulb. “Well, I never seen such smooth finger work. You is wasted, guv. Up on the lawn in Leicester Square you should be, dipping for wallets.”

Riley was not about to be distracted by such brazen bootlicking, but he gave himself a moment to smile at his apprentice’s efforts nonetheless. “Four to go, Bob, regardless of where I should or should not be.”

Bob made a great show of checking an invisible pocket watch.

“Oh Lord, lookee at the time, how she flies,” he said. “And I too must fly if I’m to make the Brighton train.”

Bob buttoned his new jacket to the neck and pumped Riley’s hand.

“Break a leg, O Great Savano. I will cable you from the seaside.”

Riley knew that it was pointless to quiz Bob any further. In young Winkle’s head, he was already halfway to Brighton.

“Very well, Bob. Off with you. Cable as soon as you have news.”

“And that will be right soon, or my name ain’t Handsome Bob Winkle.”

Handsome Bob?

That was a new one.

And with no more delay, in case Riley would squeeze in another question, Bob was down the aisle and out the front door, leaving Riley alone in a place where he was determined to forge brand-new memories.

Riley’s preparations were interrupted by a clatter coming from the front of the house, tumbling down the center aisle, and mounting the stage itself. It was the stir of men entering the building and being none too genteel about it. These were men who cared not about such things as busted hinges or broken locks. It was in they wanted; and in they were coming, regardless of barriers.

Riley had initially smiled, thinking the Trips were back and famished, but his grin soured when he saw what was barreling down the aisle toward him.

“Rams,” he said. “With the king himself at the head of the bunch.”

Riley fought his instinct to run and hide. Instead he squared his shoulders, threw back the specially tailored folds of his black fur-trimmed velvet cloak, and bowed dramatically.

“Your Majesty,” he said, and confetti showered from the rafters, as though Otto Malarkey and his gang of thugs, bludgers, cads, nobblers, and all-around ne’er-do-wells had been expected.

The Battering Rams were London’s premier gang of organized criminals, a title that had previously belonged to the Hooligan Boys, a bunch who had forfeited any claim to the term
organized
when they dynamited the eastern wall of Newgate Prison while the majority of their imprisoned war council was leaning against the other side. It was said that the bluebottles were shoveling Hooligan parts for weeks. The Battering Rams were an altogether cannier bunch. No rowdy, gin-soaked men of the moment, these. No, the Rams were more your seasoned criminals, in it for the long haul. Veterans, most of them, who had been blooded in the Transvaal or China. They appreciated a tidy battle plan, and they were prepared to follow a man with a bit of flair. And in Otto Malarkey they had found a tactical genius who had flair flowing out of his beloved pirate boots.

Otto had never been a pirate as such, but he had smuggled taxables into Whitby under the famous smuggler clergyman Reverend John Pine, who had gifted Otto the boots from his deathbed. Malarkey learned the classics at Reverend Pine’s desk. He took strategy from Caesar and politicking from Cicero. For his renowned skill with the sword he had to wait till he was dumped into the island prison of Little Saltee, where he learned the gentleman’s art from a fellow inmate. When the Rams’ previous king, one of Otto’s brothers, perished in an ignoble wrestling match with a mountain gorilla, Otto inherited the Battering Rams’ horned crown. He had steered the gang to realms of ill-gotten gains they could never have dreamed of under previous Ram kings. Lately, though, it had to be said, the power had gone a little to Otto’s head and his trademark flair had taken a turn for the flamboyant.

He was plowing his own fashion furrow and bringing quite a few of his hardened mates along with him.

So now, when Riley unfurled from his theatrical bow, he was greeted by a front row half full of snorting, bristling coves who sounded and smelled like the Battering Rams he knew so well. But they looked like dandies from some ancient royal court, resplendent in powdered wigs and rouged cheeks, and in their midst sat Otto Malarkey himself, the most powdered of the lot.

Riley spoke as he straightened. “Good evening, ladies and…”

The traditional theater greeting stuck in his gullet when he noticed Otto twirling a lace parasol.

“Ladies…and…”

Otto waited politely for a moment, then whispered through a funnel of fingers like a prompter from the wings. “Gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen.”

Riley forced a smile but was careful not to laugh. A display of mirth at this juncture could prove fatal. “Gentlemen, of course. Ladies and gentlemen. Apologies, Your High Rammity. I was not expecting an audience at this hour. Perhaps the advertisement chalked on the sidewalk outside was smudged by the passage of feet. The curtain does not rise on the evening’s entertainments for another three hours.”

Otto Malarkey idly opened and closed his parasol indoors, which was very bad luck. Riley felt a tingling of foreboding in his teeth. Theater folk are devout disciples of Lady Luck.

“I is King Ram, my young conjurer, and a single fig I does not give for what is expected. The world is, as the Bard might say, as I like it. I rolls up how and when I choose. I pay what I fancy if I fancy. I do not look to others; they looks to King Otto for tips and cues. Take this current rigout, for example.”

He paused then, almost challenging Riley to giggle, a challenge he wordlessly declined.

“We takes our high fashion cues from nature. The toughest peacock wears its feathers, the tiger revels in its stripes, and so we wear our finery, so that all may see us and know not to cross steel with the fancy boys of the Battering Rams.”

During this speech Riley felt his old training rise up from the dusky caverns of his mind and settle over his skull like a shroud. Not the magician’s training, though that was some of it; what dictated his actions now was the part of him that had absorbed Garrick’s skills in combat and assassination. It could well be that Malarkey simply fancied himself a trot to the theater with his bully chums and death would not be dealt here today, but if the High Rammity did have violence in mind, he would find Riley ready for him.

“Perhaps His Majesty and his esteemed company would enjoy a demonstration of my talents? A preview, if you will.”

Malarkey rapped the floorboards with the handle of his parasol. “You is a clever lad, a real dimber-damber. I always said it, Riley—or should I say, the Great Savano—but before we abandon ourselves to the wonders of the Orient, let us take a moment to chat viz your obligation to the Brotherhood.”

This was another long and winding statement, and while it meandered along, Riley examined what he now considered the enemy. There were six Rams arranged before him: Malarkey himself—or Golgoth, as he was known in the ring—a giant of a man barely contained by the ruffles of what looked like an opera shirt. He was flanked by Noble and Jeeves, two of his most experienced bludgers, who had manhandled Riley somewhat during their previous encounter, both barely recognizable under bonnets of powdered wig, the effect of which was ruined somewhat by facial scarification and heavy stubble. Beside Jeeves sat a man so colossal he had enough skin for two, and to the right of him sat a Ram so small he might have needed the extra skin. The monster was Otto’s little brother, Barnabus, saddled with the nickname “Inhumane” Malarkey in reference to the prosecuting attorney’s description of the assault that had earned Barnabus a half stretch in Newgate. The smaller man was Inhumane’s constant companion and general dogsbody, Pooley. Inhumane was squeezed into a blue silk frock coat with golden piping that had been tailored for a less robust frame, and Pooley was dressed in the uniform of a Russian Hussar. All were bearing obvious steel, and possibly hidden steel to complement it. All except Farley, the Rams’ tattooist, who sat two rows back, clad in his customary dark coat and worn breeches. A writing pad sat upon his knee, and he scribbled while Malarkey talked. It seemed the tattooist had now become the chronicler of King Otto’s life and times.

Riley studied the Rams and dispassionately reckoned that he could, with his training, dispatch three before the others took him. Though there was another way he might remove at least one with no resistance. He was skipping ahead to this point in his hastily assembled plan when he registered Otto saying the word
obligation.

No ordinary word this. It wasn’t like saying
pie and sausage
.

Obligation
was a big word among the Family. Obligation was taken as serious as cholera.

“Viz my obligation, Your High Rammity?” said Riley, careful not to show fear. “What obligation are you referring to? We ain’t in Ram country here in Holborn.”

But he knew. He knew in his gut what his obligation was.

Otto did not speak; instead he tugged one lace glove from his giant paw with utmost deliberation, finger by finger, then tapped his own right shoulder.

Riley knew what lay under the silken sleeve. A Ram tattoo similar to the one Farley had inked on his own shoulder six months previous, during a particularly testing escapade that would have puffed out Allan Quatermain himself. Riley’s choice at the time had been to either take the ink or be fed to the pigs. Taking the ink had seemed less immediately
terminal.

“You is one of us, lad,” said Inhumane. “You is Family.”

Riley maintained his showman’s face, but behind the smile, panic was boiling his fluids.

How could I not have foreseen this? I am a Ram. Everything I do belongs to them.

“Everything of yours is ours,” said Malarkey sweetly, as though the king were privy to members’ thoughts. “This here building. The swanky velvet seats therein. Tell me, boy, you ain’t been spending Ram chink on refurbishings, have you?”

Riley spread his arms. “Just a few knickety-knacks. Here and there, odds and ends.” It was gibberish, but he was stalling for time.

“
’Coz that would be a royal decision. Committee at the very least. You should’ve submitted a request form.”

“I didn’t know there was such a form, Your High Rammity. I never thought.”

This was apparently hilarious.

Pooley drummed his thighs with bone-thin fists.
“
’E never thought. Hark at him.”

“
’E never finks,” said Inhumane, and he chuckled long and low, with a sound like far-off cannon fire. “That is the problem.”

“Brass tacks then, Mr. Malarkey, sir,” said Riley. “What’s on my account?”

“Brass tacks,” said Malarkey. “I like you, boy, which is why I ain’t taking this personal. I ain’t taking all of this sneaky earning the wrong way. I
could
see it like you been dipping into my pocket. Taking the bread out of my starving little brother’s pie hole.”

A thought struck Inhumane. “I
am
starving, as it ’appens.”

Otto laughed, waving the parasol like a baton. “See? He’s starving, is Barnabus. You wanna watch out—he’s likely to take a bite out of yer leg. He’s partial to tender meat, is Barnabus.”

Riley went slightly on the offensive. “So, we’re all square at the moment, King Otto?”

Had Riley been famed comic George Robey, the cacophony of laughter following this statement could hardly have been more enthusiastic. With eyes closed, one would have sworn that the Orient was packed to the gods based on volume alone. The mirth shook the men and the men shook the theater until their seats strained their floor bolts.

“All square?” wept King Otto, having taken a pull of brandy from the handle of his parasol. “Dear me, Riley. You is a tonic and no mistake. All square?” He thumped the Rams in range. “Did you ever hear of such a thing? There ain’t no
all square
in the Brotherhood, my boy. All square is not a condition we deals in.”

Riley felt despair drop over him neat as a butterfly net. “Perhaps you could set me straight, King Otto.”

Financial details were too vulgar for royalty to deal with, so Otto delegated. “Farley, spell it out for the Great Savano. Keep it simple. After all, he’s only a lad, despite his grand title.”