Righty grinned widely.
“That means you’re just a crook like me!”
He ducked down and gave him an uppercut to the stomach that literally picked him up three inches off the ground and abruptly ended his screaming. A soft “huuuuuuu” replaced it.
“Trickery . . . it hurts, doesn’t it?” Righty said. “He then delivered three body shots to his left, then right, ribs, each of which shattered bones like they were dry twigs.
“No need to answer that question, is there?” Righty said. He then slipped on a pair of brass knuckles, and in about ten seconds delivered more damage to Willis than the average man could have with a sledgehammer.
By the time it was done, Willis was very dead, Righty was covered in blood, and he felt much better. He knew this was little different than checking off a couple chores on a very long list, but most tasks seem less daunting once they’ve been started.
His head felt clearer than it had at any point since he had first heard about Tats’ arrest, and he calmly but thoroughly frisked Willis for anything of a useful nature. Then, he frisked his saddlebags. When it was over, Righty had a federal police badge, Sam Higler’s criminal case notes, and keys to NDP headquarters.
Righty had Harold track down the other agent’s corpse, and he frisked it just as thoroughly, confiscating another badge and set of keys in the process. Lastly, Harold tracked down Benjamin’s fleeing horse and set Righty on top. Righty coaxed the horse to a stop, then searched the saddlebags. Nothing of note was there besides a third-rate sword, which Righty quickly discarded.
“We’ve got company,” Harold said calmly.
Righty turned but saw nothing.
“There a ways off yet,” Harold said.
“Civilians?”
“Yep.”
“Let’s scram. Fly low till we’re a safe distance away. There’s plenty more blood to shed without throwing innocent blood into the mix.”
Harold took off.
Chapter 18
It was 9 p.m. and nearly pitch black. A sliver of the moon survived, grudgingly granting a dull glow that served to distinguish the milieu slightly from the belly of a deep cave.
“See anything down there?” Righty asked.
“A couple of dogs,” Harold replied.
Righty pulled out two raw steaks from a bag and dropped them at slightly different trajectories, ensuring that they landed on nearly opposite sides of the luxurious estate a couple hundred feet below.
Righty heard a loud “Woof!” repeated several times, but silence supplanted barking as the dogs chowed down on their steaks. Righty had visited a quality botanist that day in Sivingdel and asked for something that would cure his stubborn insomnia. And if the powder he had massaged into the steaks was even half as good as she claimed, those dogs were going to be having the best nap of their lives before they even finished their meal.
“They’re dozing,” Harold said a couple minutes later, saving Righty a lot of unpleasant guesswork.
Righty summoned the rock coach to his mind briefly for a bit of justification.
The only way is up, the coach told him flatly.
In this case, “up” meant down.
“Take me down nice and slow, Harold.” Righty then suddenly felt a flash of doubt. “Wait a second! Do more one check of the perimeter. Let me know if you see anyone looking out of the windows.”
Harold calmly did as he was told, the whole job taking a mere twenty seconds.
“The coast is clear,” he assured.
“Let’s do it,” Righty said.
This was it. No more scoping out the house.
Harold glided down softly, lazily tilting to one side and then the next, looking a bit like a leaf drifting leisurely towards the ground.
As soon as Righty’s feet touched the ground, he felt a surge of adrenaline bigger than he had ever felt since the Oscar Peters’ fight, but much worse.
Suddenly, the image of being at home with a lovely baby girl in his arms and a wife by his side asking him if he wanted anything to eat seemed like heaven.
But, tough job that it was, he knew that if he ever wanted to enjoy another tranquil night of sleep with his wife and child, without worrying about police crashing into his home to harass and berate him the way they had done today, he was going to have to man up and follow through.
He looked at Harold, and Harold looked back.
He was tempted to tell Harold to go in his place, this just being a bit beyond Righty’s mettle. But he wasn’t about to risk Harold getting trapped inside a house when Righty’s anatomy was far better suited to the job.
He approached Harold and whispered, “If I don’t see you again, I just want you to know you’re the best friend I’ve ever had. Ever!”
Harold nodded.
Righty turned away and inched towards the door. Not really expecting his luck to be so great, he half-heartedly grabbed the door handle and tried giving it a slight twist.
Nothing.
He knew as much about picking locks as a horse does about playing the cello.
His heart threatened to explode in his chest, it thundered so violently.
There was only one option left—a caveman-style onslaught.
He tried to think of a peaceful place for just a few seconds, in case he never experienced another moment of peace in his life.
He counted to three.
WHAP!
He gave the door a hard kick, clearing the deadbolt, and almost knocking the inside chain lock off, but it hung there stubbornly, like a piece of gristle. He unsheathed his sword and cut upwards, slicing it in two and charged inside.
There was darkness everywhere, making outside look like market at midday.
He heard a low growl.
“Grrrrrrr!”
“Sic ‘em, Francis!” he heard a voice shout. It came from upstairs.
Righty quickly turned that way and heard paws clacking against what was clearly a wooden staircase.
When the sound was nearly on top of him he reluctantly swung his sword in a horizontal arc in front of him. It cleaved something, drew a whimper, and then produced silence.
Righty had hoped he would get the benefit of some internal light, but now that it was clear he would have no such luck, he pulled a match out of his pocket, struck it against his boot, and lit a small candle that he now held in his left palm.
He compressed the sword to dagger size, since any fighting was likely going to be in close quarters, and he had to keep a hold of this candle at all costs.
He knew that as the intruder he had a lot going against him. He didn’t know the layout of the house. It was only a matter of time before a bloodcurdling scream or other loud noise alerted the neighbors or before those dozing canines outside awoke from what proved to be more of a siesta than the deep sleep promised by the botanist and started barking like there was no tomorrow. Thus, he had no choice but to proceed forward.
He began ascending the steps slowly, and as he did so he heard scurrying footsteps in retreat. He was tempted to sprint at that same moment but feared a trap.
He continued up the stairs slowly and methodically, not unaware that to any observer of the drama he must surely look like a campfire-story monster.
It’s a dirty job, but it’s gotta be done, he reminded himself, while simultaneously assuring his subconscious that at some peaceful moment in the future he would carefully reflect on all the moral intricacies of his deeds thus far, the deed he was about to do, and the other deeds he still had left to do on his dirty job list.
He had reached the top of his stairs. Muffled whispers informed him his prey was just down the hallway inside a bedroom to his right. Warily, he glanced both directions down the hallway before proceeding carefully towards the sound.
He was now about two feet from the closed door. His heart was racing so bad he wasn’t sure how much longer he could take this before he keeled over from a heart attack.
He was tempted to ki
ck in the door and just start swinging his sword around wildly, but he wasn’t wearing any armor, and he knew that if it was him on the other side of that door he would be waiting with some nasty surprise, such as a readied knife to poke into the burglar’s side or perhaps a heavy object to send crashing down on top of his head. He needed to do something at least a bit more clever.
He noticed that while the hallway floor was made of solid wood there was the unmistakable fuzz of carpet visible underneath the door, which looked like it had a gap under it just large enough to fit a candle.
Slowly but calmly, realizing he was at risk of leaving himself in pitch black darkness against a possibly armed adversary, he bent down and sent the candle rolling underneath the door.
“HELL!” he heard a voice groan, followed by rapidly moving footsteps in pursuit.
It was now or never.
Righty extended his sword, kicked in the door, and barged in, making sure to pivot quickly to each side to look for any nasty traps.
Chief Benson was stomping on the candle like crazy while a frightened man hid all but his face underneath the bedsheets.
“It’s not personal,” Righty said, as he lopped the man’s head off with one quick stroke before grabbing the chief by the back of his shirt.
Righty realized almost too late that while the chief’s feet were busy tap-dancing on top of the candle his hands held a cane that had a foot-long blade protruding from it.
The moment the chief whirled around with his cane, Righty quickly let go of the back of his shirt and blocked the sweeping arc by pointing his sword perpendicularly towards the ground.
The cane was cut in half, but Righty would have preferred it not happen that way, since the bladed end went flying off and made a nice cut on his back.
Keeping hold of his sword, Righty sent his elbow crashing into the chief’s jaw, knocking him unconscious instantly.
He kicked the headless corpse off the bed, set the chief’s limp body on it, and then straddled him, waiting for him to come to.
He compressed the sword to dagger size and put it in his sleeve.
About twenty seconds later, he gave the unconscious chief a couple good slaps to the face to speed up the resuscitation process.
It seemed to work, though a fastidious philosopher may have argued this was merely a case of the post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy.
Either way, Righty was now looking down at a very awake, very captive audience of one.
“YOU?!!” said the chief in disbelief. “I thought it was the feds, or maybe some of Sam’s old gang. They’re not too happy, you know. They figured they were heirs to Sam’s throne and thus to Sam’s empire. You’ve made a lot of enemies.”
Righty listened intently, but it seemed the chief was done talking.
“You said there were informants in my gang. Who are they?!”
“Now that kind of information can be had easily for a million falons a month, but instead you waltz in here, kill my hired company, and knock the daylights out of me!”
Righty looked at him steadily, waiting for him to divulge more information.
“Heck, I don’t know their names. I had my men on it. If you were to get off of me and show yourself to be reasonable, I think I might be able to find some notes I keep with that information,” the chief said, a sly look on his face.
Feeling almost remorseful, Righty said, “You know, chief, in another time, in another place, I feel we would have had a very good working relationship. But there’s one reason it can’t work.”
The chief’s eyes searched his.
Righty bent down and whispered into his ear, “I can’t do business with a cop who knows my real name.”
“Richard Franklin Simmers. I found it in thirty minutes at the boxing association,” the chief replied calmly, not even trying to fool Righty with the lie that he had been able to tame his curiosity.
“You were one hell of a fighter, Righty. Better than Oscar Peters, in my opinion. Your body shots were—”
Righty pulled out his dagger and sliced the chief’s head off, tears streaming down his face. He knew that if he had listened to even one more second he would have listened to another minute. And if he had listened to another minute, he would have cut a deal and let the chief live. And if he had let the chief live, the chief would have disseminated his name to a dozen crooked colleagues and possibly forwarded it to journalists as a little insurance policy—if he hadn’t done so already.
And then one day Righty would see his name on the front page of The Sivingdel Times proclaiming him to be the city’s kingpin, to which the chief would slyly state, Don’t look at me—surely, you didn’t think you could go unrecognized forever! And then Righty’s chances of surviving long enough in this sordid underworld to reach “the top” referred to by his subconscious rock climbing coach would go from one in a hundred to one in ten million.
The chief should have just kept that card nice and close to his chest.
Righty checked his watch. It was only 9:20 p.m., but he felt like he had been in the house five hours, and his welcome was already worn thin.
He began frantically searching the room. He found the chief’s coat and searched the pockets frantically. He extracted some papers and stuffed them into one of his own pockets without even taking the time to read the material. He grabbed the chief’s briefcase, opened it and saw it was filled with papers, and decided it would be most efficient to take the whole thing.
He then approached the chief’s desk and opened it. It too was stuffed with papers.
Hurry it up, pal! a not-so friendly inner voice told him.
He noticed the middle of the desk was hollow to allow for plenty of sitting room. An idea came to mind. He pulled out his sword and with two quick strokes hacked the hollowed portion away, leaving just the two sides with the drawers.
Feeling like the entire police department was going to be storming the house at any moment, he nearly fainted with terror as he gripped a lantern—which he had taken from the room—with his teeth while he carried a stack of desk drawers in each hand.
When he got to the base of the stairs, he tripped, and in spite of his noblest efforts went crashing face first towards the floor. He decided to let the drawers fall, while he reached for the lantern with both hands, which he just barely caught before it crashed to the floor. He landed on his left side, and while it stung like hell, his adrenaline and terror forced him to his feet immediately.
He quickly opened up the desk drawers and began retrieving the papers that had hopped out of the desk and started stuffing them back into the drawers quicker than the most-seasoned secretary.
He then sprinted back upstairs, grabbed the briefcase, put the chief’s head inside a bag that he had brought for the occasion, and went back downstairs.
He was about to open the door and beseech Harold to get him the righteous hell out of there when suddenly a terrifying drama unfolded in his imagination.
Detectives were poring over every square inch of the home.
Find anything yet?
Nothing major . . . oh, wait, here’s a note tucked inside this drawer. It says, and I quote, “If you find my head and my body have parted ways, look into an ex-boxer named Richard Franklin Simmers, aka Righty Rick, aka Mr. Brass, aka Public Menace No. 1, native of Ringsetter, current kingpin of Sivingdel.”
Well, it may be a sick joke. You know the chief was always messing around with us detectives, but check it out anyway. There might be something there.
Sure thing, boss.
Righty didn’t need to watch any more of this drama.
He saw a bookshelf in the corner. He went and pushed it over on its side. Then, he picked up a random book: Brutality During the Prohibition Wars was its title.
Reluctantly, feeling like a guy who has stopped to play pinochle with his pals during a high-stakes bank heist, he went and added the book to one of the dresser drawers.
He then picked up another bo
ok, but refused himself the privilege of looking at its title for fear he might still be there at dawn making choice selections from the chief’s library, and tore open the pages and made a pile. He then repeated this process with several other books, whose titles will never be known.
He then went to the door, hauled the desk drawers outside, and said in a loud whisper, “Be ready in thirty seconds!”
He then went back inside the house and hurled the lantern at the pile of books.
It bounced off ineffectually.
Furious, he picked it up and sliced it in two in midair while it descended upon the books.
WHOOSH!! an angry puff of fire rebuked him.
He sprinted outside, holding only the briefcase in one hand and a very grisly bag in the other.
SARAH AND LLOYD’S HOME
A PLACE OF LOVE