The Londum Omnibus Volume Two (The Londum Series Book 12)

by Tony Rattigan

  ‘What the hell? Stop kicking me you crazy old man!’

  Tie-Pin ignored him. ‘Get up! Get up!’ kicking him again.

  Jim threw his blanket aside, leapt to his feet and glowered at Tie-Pin, ‘You touch me again and I’ll put you through that wall!’ he said with barely suppressed rage.

  Tie-Pin relaxed and stood there calmly for a moment then raised the lantern so he could look into Jim’s furious eyes. ‘Now you are ready,’ he said quietly. ‘I had to be certain before we went onto the next stage. It is one thing to learn to do these things but quite another to be able to do these things. Now I have looked into your eyes, into your heart, I can see that you are capable of these things. Now I will teach you.’

  ‘Teach me what?’ asked Jim.

  ‘How to kill people.’

  ***

  SPLASH! The bucket of water woke Jim, onomatopoeically. (Well ... look it up. See, this book’s educational as well.)

  Big Mick was leering down at him, ‘Time to wake up Mr. Darby. Someone’s come to see you, so they have.’

  Jim shook the water off himself as Big Mick stepped aside. Standing behind him was Bolan.

  Oh Dear, thought Jim. He was hoping that had he been left in just the hands of Big Mick and his troupe, he could maybe have talked his way out or bought his way out of it. Not with Bolan, he knew this was only going to end with someone dying.

  ‘Why are you two working together?’ asked Jim. ‘I’d have hardly thought that you move in the same social circles.’

  ‘Well, when you began to become involved in our affairs Mr. Lassiter had me doing a bit of scouting around about you,’ replied Bolan. ‘He also figured that if we were going to take you on in your home territory then we had better have some muscle that we could call on if necessary, to counter anything that you could call up.

  ‘I learnt that you hung around a place called The Golden Gryphon so I went there. It didn’t take long spreading a bit of cash around, to find out that you weren’t that popular with certain people. A few more coins to McGarry here and he gave me the low-down on you. Said he’d be happy to help if it ever came to giving you a good kicking and I thought I’d take him up on his offer. So here we are.

  ‘Anyway, now that they’ve had their fun, I thought I’d come down and finish you off myself. I asked them to save you for me.’

  ‘I see … you couldn’t handle me by yourself, so you had to get McGarry to soften me up first,’ Jim taunted him.

  ‘Oh, I could have handled you all right but I thought it would be nice if Big Mick and his men had a bit of fun first. It seems they owe you a good hiding.’

  Jim knew that the only way he was going to have a cat in hell’s chance of surviving this was to get them to untie him and let him fight back. ‘Men?’ he retorted. ‘There’s no men in this room except the one tied to this chair. Untie me and I’ll show you what a real man fights like.’

  Bolan smiled, ‘And why would I do that? The idea is to kill you, not challenge you to a duel, Mr. Lassiter wants you dead. Why should I take chances?’

  ‘If you were a man it would be more sport for you, but I guess you’re just too Chicken-Shit for that. How on earth did you ever get that snake tattoo on the back of your hand? You obviously didn’t earn it.’

  Jim could see Bolan was beginning to get annoyed. ‘Okay, untie him. I’ll show him that I don’t need to have someone tied down to beat them in a fight.’

  ‘Are you sure Mr. Bolan?’ asked Big Mick, ‘I’ve seen what he can do.’

  Bolan looked at him with contempt. ‘Do it!’ he commanded.

  Big Mick waved to one of his men to untie Jim. Once he was loose, everyone else in the room except Bolan backed away to the door.

  Bolan took his jacket off and threw it to Big Mick. Jim got up slowly out of the chair; he ached all over from the beating that Big Mick had given him. He wasn’t too sure that he didn’t have a cracked rib. The roughing up had taken a lot out of him and he wasn’t sure if he could have taken Bolan even if he was in the best of health but as it was he could barely stand.

  Bolan was on him in a rush; Jim hardly had time to dodge a blow to the head before a fist caught him in the stomach. Jim doubled over and barely missed the knee coming up into his face. He had sense enough to grab the upraised leg and kick the other one away from underneath Bolan. Bolan hit the floor with a crash and Jim stepped back.

  Bolan got to his feet angrily and went for Jim again. This time Jim was only able to block a couple of blows before he took two to the head and one in the chest that slammed him against the wall.

  The man is so strong, thought Jim; I’m not going to be able to hold him off for long.

  As Bolan ran at him, Jim braced himself against the wall and managed to raise his leg and kick him in the stomach, which he followed up with a blow to the side of the neck that caused Bolan to stagger and fall.

  Jim supported himself against the wall, his vision fading in and out, his strength nearly gone. Bolan raised himself to his feet and came at him again.

  This time he grabbed Jim around the waist and hoisted him into the air. Jim nearly passed out from the pain in his side from the cracked rib, he had to get Bolan to release him now.

  Jim cupped his hands and slapped them against Bolan’s ears. If done properly, the air, compressed and forced into the ear, can burst the eardrum. Bolan grunted in pain and dropped Jim who fell to his knees, gasping for air.

  As Jim got to his feet, he saw with satisfaction that blood was running out of one of Bolan’s ears.

  Bolan swung his massive fist and caught Jim on the shoulder. Jim managed to counter with a blow to the nose, which, to Jim’s satisfaction, gave an unpleasant crunch and spurted blood.

  Bolan shouted in pain and anger and hammered Jim with a couple of blows that nearly took his head off. While he was reeling from them Bolan hit him twice in the body and Jim dropped to his knees, where a kick to the head sent him sprawling.

  It was no good, Jim had taken too much of a beating at the hands of Big Mick’s men, and he just didn’t have the strength to deal with this onslaught. It was taking all he had just to stand up to Bolan, let alone fight back.

  He was going to die in this squalid basement.

  ***

  Death was in the room.

  Jim had never really understood before what it meant when veteran soldiers had told him you could sense when Death was around, ready to take the unlucky or the careless. You could almost smell him, they said. The only way to cheat him was to make sure that the other fella was more unlucky or more careless than you.

  Jim had seen action in the Army and had had to fight for his life, both in combat and in his civilian life but it was only now that he finally understood what those old soldiers had meant.

  Death was here now … in the room, Jim could smell him. It was the smell of blood and sweat … and fear.

  Jim’s vision was blurry from where his head had hit the wall. He thought for a moment he could actually see Death, peering over Bolan’s shoulder. He shook his head to clear it and suddenly all he could see was Bolan’s ugly mug.

  Then for some reason, the image of little Sarah flashed into his mind. He’d promised her he would be back. That was it … Jim decided he wasn’t going to die today, in this grubby cellar. He’d made a promise to a little girl and by the Gods he was going to keep it.

  Jim slowly raised himself to a standing position, using the wall for support. Bolan stood there in the middle of the room, taunting him wordlessly, beckoning Jim towards him with his hands. Inviting him to face his death.

  Jim took a deep breath then he reached a decision. It was time for something he didn’t like doing but it had been forced upon him, it was him or Bolan. It was time to make sure that the other fella was more unlucky or more careless than him.

  Jim staggered forward, he only had one chance at this so he had to be spot on. He stumbled a bit, not all pretence, and deliberately swung a clumsy roundhouse with his left at Bolan’s head
, forcing him to block with his right, leaving his chest wide open.

  BAMN! Jim punched with all his strength into Bolan’s Solar Plexus, just below the point where the ribcage joins. The Solar Plexus is the nerve centre in the abdomen, which controls things like the liver, the kidneys, the stomach and the adrenal glands, if you hit it correctly the whole system can shut down temporarily. It’s like being hit in the chest with a sledgehammer.

  Bolan stopped in his tracks and grabbed at his chest. Jim drew his arm back and punched Bolan in the throat as hard as he could, crushing his larynx. Bolan’s hands went to his throat and he sank to his knees with a strangled choke, blood coming out of his mouth, then he slowly bent forward, dying or dead, until his forehead was touching the floor.

  Jim stood there, swaying slightly. He was pretty sure that that had done the trick but there was one more thing he had to do, just to make sure. He had to make a point to the others in the room so he didn’t have to fight them as well. He stood over Bolan, raised his foot and brought it down onto his exposed neck. There was a loud CRACK! as Bolan’s neck broke.

  Jim slowly turned around and faced Big Mick and his boys, ‘Right,’ he said calmly, ‘who’s next?’

  They fell over each other scrambling to get out the room. Jim staggered over to the door, slammed it and locked it behind them. He stared around the room and at Bolan’s body. Death had left, taking his bounty with him, Jim could breathe again.

  Closing the door had taken the very last of his strength; he put his back against the door and slid to the floor.

  ‘You hear that, Bolan?’ he asked weakly. ‘That’s the sound of the fat lady singing.’ Then he slumped over and gratefully passed out.

  ***

  When Jim woke up later it took him a few minutes to remember where he was and why he ached so much. As his head cleared and he got his act together he stared at Bolan. Jim had obviously been out for several hours, as Bolan’s body had started to relax and his body fluids began to leak out of him and stink the room up.

  Jim rolled over to his hands and knees and used his hands to work his way up the wall until he was in a standing position. He looked around the room and saw his jacket lying in a corner. He went to it and picked it up but it was all torn where Big Mick’s men had ripped it off him. He found his wallet but it had been emptied of money. He would need money to get home so he found Bolan’s jacket and emptied the wallet. He thought about wearing the jacket but it was way too big for him and the last thing he wanted to do was to draw attention to himself by wearing an oversized jacket, when exiting a house with a dead body in the cellar.

  Jim made it to the door and unlocked it. Standing in the corridor of the basement he listened for any sounds coming from upstairs in the house but everything was silent. He made his way up the stairs and cautiously opened the cellar door.

  Still no sign of anyone. He had to make his way along the hall by leaning one hand against the wall, he couldn’t stand up straight by himself. As he passed Lassiter’s study he glanced in and saw a pair of feet sticking out from behind the desk. Curious, he went in and slowly approached the desk.

  They were Lassiter’s feet sticking out from behind the desk. Naturally they were attached to Lassiter’s legs and they ran up to Lassiter’s body. Lassiter’s eyes were open and stared unseeing at the ceiling. He was dead.

  It was clear what had killed him. Lassiter wasn’t wearing a jacket and the three glaringly obvious bullet holes in his chest gave the game away. Three shots, point blank to the chest. Jim could tell from the powder burns on Lassiter’s waistcoat that it had taken place up close and personal. He was puzzled though. Who had shot him? It obviously wasn’t Bolan. Jim thought it was unlikely to be Big Mick or any of his men, they were street thugs not killers. None of them had the backbone for that, he thought. Besides, he wouldn’t have expected them to get the better of Vincent Lassiter, he was too smart to let that happen. Then he noticed a flash of white from something that Lassiter had clenched tightly in his fist.

  He knelt down painfully next to Lassiter’s body and opened its hand. It was grasping a white handkerchief, trimmed with lace. A woman’s handkerchief. Unless, in the unlikely event Lassiter was carrying it around as some kind of memento and just happened to be holding it when he was shot, the chances were that he grabbed it from his killer as he died.

  That meant Racine! He smelt the handkerchief and it had her perfume on it. So they had lied to him when they said she was dead. Thank the Gods! She was still alive. But it also meant she had killed Lassiter. What the hell was going on?

  He decided he couldn’t spare the energy to think about that now, he had to get out of there soon in case someone had heard the shots and raised the alarm. He stood up and saw once again that Lassiter was in his shirt sleeves, which meant there was a jacket around here somewhere going spare. Jim looked around the room and saw Lassiter’s frock coat hanging from a hook on the back of the study door. He tried it on for size. It was a close enough fit.

  He let himself out of the house and stumbled down the drive of the small garden until he was out on the street. He had to travel several streets until he saw a cabbie. He waved him to a stop.

  ‘Do you know Annie Parker’s place?’

  ‘Afraid not, sir.’

  Jim’s vision was wavering again, he urgently needed to lie down. He pulled bank notes out of his pocket, stuffed them into the cabbies hand and said desperately, while he could still stand, ‘Do you know Bob Carpenter?’

  ‘Sure, everybody knows old Bob,’ replied the cabbie.

  ‘Well, take me to him.’

  The cabbie looked at the wad of notes in his hand and said, ‘Sure thing, hop in.’

  Jim climbed gratefully into the carriage, sat down and passed out again.

  ***

  Jim woke up in a soft bed, covered with clean sheets. The room was silent except for the ticking of a clock. He could tell from the décor that it was one of the rooms at Annie’s place. Did I just dream all that, he thought, then he tried to sit up and the way his muscles screamed convinced him that he had actually gone through that beating.

  He lay there, mentally assessing the damage, he ached all over, even his hair hurt but he had a particularly nasty pain on his left side. He lifted the sheets and saw he was naked. He was doing a visual check that all was in place when Annie came in, carrying a tray.

  ‘Mr. Darby, what are you a doin’ of under that sheet?’

  ‘Don’t tell me that you didn’t have a peek while I was out.’

  ‘Disgraceful suggestion, besides there’s nothin’ down there I ain’t seen before.’

  She put the tray down on the bedside table. ‘I was jus’ comin’ to give you a wash down.’

  ‘How long have I been here, Annie?’

  She took a cloth out of the bowl on the tray and wrung it out. ‘Let’s see, Bob Carpenter brought you in unconscious the night before yesterday. I thought you was like to die, I did, so I called the doctor in. You were a mass of bruises and ‘ardly breathing. He checked you over and figured you probably had a cracked rib because of one particularly huge bruise on your side. Said all we could do was keep feedin’ you medicine and ‘ope for the best.

  ‘You’ve been out cold since you got here.’ As she talked she washed his face and arms. She soaked the cloth and wrung it out again then pulled back the sheets to do his lower body.

  ‘Good Gods!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Jim, concerned.

  ‘Most of the bruising has gone away and that nasty bruise over your rib isn’t ‘alf the size it was yesterday. That’s not right, that’s supernatural that is.’

  Jim looked at his body, she was right, his bruising had mostly cleared up. The bruise over his rib was only about the size of a handprint and from Annie’s description it had been much bigger than that before.

  ‘Well I never Mr. Darby, you ain’t into witchcraft are you? ‘Cus that ain’t natural, it ‘ealing like that, not natural.’

&nb
sp; ‘I’m as puzzled as you are Annie, unless … do you think that werewolf bite is still having an effect?’

  ‘Ow d’ya mean?’

  ‘Well I fought a werewolf once and they regenerate very quickly if you injure them. I mean, really quickly, before your very eyes. I wonder if some of that werewolf virus is still in my body and is making me heal much quicker than normal.’

  ‘It sure looks like it. At this rate you’ll be as right as nine-pence by tomorrow.’

  ‘I sure hope so, I’ve got things to do.’

  ‘Well, be that as it may, for now your goin’ to ‘ave some food and get some rest. You need to build your strength up.’ She finished his bed bath and went to get him some food. He was asleep again by the time she came back, so she put the bowl of soup on the dresser and settled down in a chair to watch over him, as she had done for every hour since he had arrived.

  ***

  Next morning Jim got painfully out of bed, bathed and dressed assisted by an over-protective Annie. ‘Now don’t you go overdoin’ it today, Mr. Darby. You’ve done splendid but you ain’t completely ‘ealed yet. Take it easy,’ as she straightened his tie.

  Jim, who didn’t like being mothered, kept his cool as he knew she only meant the best for him. She was right though, he wasn’t completely healed but it only hurt when he stood up or sat down, once he was moving he was fine. And his rib still hurt if he took a deep breath but it was still miles better than it had been yesterday.

  ‘I’ll be all right Annie. Everyone that might want to hurt me appears to be dead but I still need to see someone to wrap this all up. No need to worry about me.’ He kissed her on the forehead and left.

  Jim stopped off at his place to pick some things up and then took a carriage to Racine’s house. He dismounted on the street outside her place and then walked into the small garden. Ignoring the path to the front door, he skirted the garden and approached the house from the rear entrance. Unlocking the door with a pick, he let himself inside. He drew his pistol and quietly made his way deeper into the house.