Alex Grecian - The Yard

“No, thank you,” he said.

Her face turned red and ugly. “Well, you’re a ponce, then, ain’tcha?”

“Hardly.”

He put the girl out of his head and frowned at the mug on the bar. He had struck out again at the Whistle and Flute, and he didn’t have time to visit another pub this morning. Besides, most of them would be closing soon, if they weren’t closed already. Only the least reputable places were still open, which was why Hammersmith was still out looking. The least reputable places were the places most likely to attract his quarry.

“Oh!”

Hammersmith turned in time to see the girl fall to the floor.

“You didn’t have to get rough,” she said.

He didn’t see anyone else around, and the men at the card table across the room hadn’t budged. Hammersmith realized he was about to fall into yet another trap arranged by the same girl, and he moved quickly away from the bar just as the giant hand of the barkeep came crashing down where he had been leaning.

“What’s this, then?” the hairy brute said.

Hammersmith felt like a fool. Evidently, if the girl couldn’t coax a man upstairs where the older women might gain a shilling from him, then she’d fake an insult and the barkeep would beat or intimidate the hapless mark for a few coins. The entire establishment was set up to swindle anyone who wasn’t in on the game.

Hammersmith took another step back and reached for his club. It was strapped to his side, under his jacket. He brought it out as the barkeep produced his own club from beneath the counter. The barkeep’s club was three feet long and had iron spikes set into it. Next to it, Hammersmith’s nightstick looked like a toy. The barkeep raised a hinged portion of the bar’s surface and stepped out from behind the counter. In one smooth move he was standing in front of Hammersmith.

Hammersmith glanced toward the other end of the room. The two older prostitutes had disappeared, presumably into a back room or up the stairs. The card players had left their table and were ranged out across the wall, their features still hidden in the shadows, waiting either to resume their game or to head Hammersmith off if he ran for the door.

Hammersmith raised his hands, showing the barkeep his pitiful nightstick. The barkeep blinked and punched Hammersmith in the nose. Blood poured out across the front of Hammersmith’s shirt and spattered the floor.

He swung his club. It hit the barkeep on the shoulder and bounced off. The barkeep grinned. His teeth were uneven and brown, crumbled nuggets of bone. The young prostitute grabbed Hammersmith from behind and he shrugged her off, but he was distracted long enough that he almost missed seeing the barkeep’s club as it whistled toward him. He ducked and the club sailed over his head, thunking into the stool behind him. One of the spikes on the big man’s club stuck in the wooden seat, and the barkeep braced the stool with his foot to try to pry it out.

Hammersmith seized the moment and turned to run, but the girl hung on to his jacket and blocked his retreat. He swatted her hands away, but by now the barkeep had freed his club from the bar stool and was taking aim again.

Hammersmith turned to the side, hoping the club would hit him in the arm rather than the head, but he tripped over the girl’s leg and fell back. The girl fell the other way and the club clipped her shoulder. She screamed and Hammersmith hit the floor rolling. He jumped up, but the barkeep had already dropped the club and was hovering over the girl, who had pulled herself into a ball under the seats, her legs drawn up to her chest and her back against the counter. Blood flowed freely down her left arm, and she was trying to stop it by batting at it with her right hand.

The barkeep squatted down in front of her and grabbed her flailing hand, trying to get a look at the damage. Hammersmith was frozen in place. He knew he should run, but he was riveted to the spot, unable to look away.

“Hush now, little one,” the barkeep said. “Let me have a look at it.”

“Daddy, make it stop.”

Hammersmith felt sick. The barkeep had put his own daughter to work hustling the customers.

The barkeep looked up from the girl and snarled, “Don’t you move, mister. You give me one minute here and I’m ’a kill you good.”

Hammersmith felt a hand on his arm and jumped. He turned, his club raised. The only other people in the pub were the card players, and they had him outnumbered. He was ready to do his worst, but the man behind him was familiar, now that his features weren’t hidden in shadows.

“Best we get out of here now,” Blackleg said, “afore Big Pete gets his hands on you.”

Hammersmith nodded. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he said.

Fennimore Hubbard sat on the curb and examined the soles of his feet. They hurt badly, and his pace had slowed in the last hour. Blisters had already formed and burst, and blood mixed with rainwater beneath him to create pale pink tributaries that crossed the divides of his toes and trickled away into the gutter. He wished now that he had taken the time to put on a pair of shoes before dropping from the bald man’s window, but what was done was done.

He shucked his sopping pajama shirt and twisted it in his tiny fists, trying to rip it in half. The fabric was too strong, so he used his teeth. It was a well-made shirt, probably fashioned by the bald man himself. Once he got it started, it ripped easily enough up the back, but he had trouble with the collar and had to remove it completely, tossing it into the street.

He wrapped the shirt halves around each of his feet and knotted them at the top. He stood. The fabric bunched under the balls of his feet and threw off his balance, but his feet felt a little better.

Now, of course, he was bare-chested and cold. He was seven years old and not large for his age. His ribs sat on his flesh like umbrella tines. The best way to keep warm, he thought, was to keep running.

Fenn had a good sense of direction, and he was certain he was headed toward home, his real home, the house he’d been born in and the house where his parents, he hoped, still lived and waited for him. The bald man had told him that his parents and three sisters had moved away, that they had sold Fenn to the bald man, and that there was no birth home to return to. But Fenn didn’t believe anything the bald man said. The bald man had also claimed to love Fenn as his own son, but Fenn’s father, his real father, had never tied him to a bed or shut him up in a dark closet or screamed at him. Fenn wasn’t a baby, he could figure things out for himself, and it hadn’t been hard to figure out that the bald man was dangerous. The bald man was something that Fenn had heard his father refer to as “touched in the head.” Which meant that he did things that made no sense.

Fenn was also certain that the bald man had killed other children. He had heard the man say several times that Fenn was “another chance” for him, that Fenn would be better than “the others.” And so Fenn had tried to be better than he imagined the others had been. He was smart-his real mother always said so-and he had understood that fighting the bald man, or disobeying him, was futile. He had known to bide his time.

His one big mistake had been in not talking to the policeman who had come round the bald man’s shop. The policeman, who had not worn a blue uniform like the other policemen Fenn had seen, said his name was Little, but he was big and fat, which was funny. The bald man told Fenn to be quiet when the policeman came, but Mr Little had looked right at Fenn and said that his parents were looking for him.

And right then Fenn should have told Mr Little that the bald man was touched in the head. He should have shouted it as soon as he saw the scissors in the bald man’s hand. But he didn’t. The nice fat policeman was dead now, and Fenn believed it was his fault.