Dan Simmons - The Fifth Heart

The youngest thug pulled the blade back from James’s belly and held the knife down at his side as Roosevelt and King stepped up to the group.

“James!” said Roosevelt again, ignoring the three hoodlums and showing his huge, perfect-toothed grin beneath his gold pince-nez. His blue eyes were very bright, as if in joyous anticipation of something. “How fortunate to bump into you! King and I were hoping to find you . . . we’re headed over to Hay’s home for dinner.”

Clarence King’s hazel eyes were much colder than Roosevelt’s blue gaze. While Roosevelt had no walking stick with him, King was carrying the elaborate one that James had first seen at Hay’s home: the top was of some burnished stone naturally curved almost like a bird’s beak.

The two tallest thugs exchanged glances and the bearded leader nodded. James assumed that they’d just silently agreed to rob and beat—and possibly kill—all three of the “swells” they’d just encountered on the edge of Night Town. James didn’t know if these three thugs had been at Moriarty’s meeting or not . . . and realized it didn’t matter. He’d tried to warn his friends away with not-so-subtle shoving motions of his hands when they were across the street, but now it was too late. The six men were clustered in a rather tight circle here at the entrance to the dark alley.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” young Roosevelt said to the thugs, still smiling that impossible white smile. “Thank you for escorting our friend this far. We shall walk with him from here.”

The two tallest men shifted to their right, blocking any easy retreat for King or Roosevelt. The scrawny young man closest to Henry James had his blade raised and visible again.

The leader flicked his grimy fingertips up and then down Roosevelt’s waistcoated thick torso. “There’s a good watch at the end of that chain, ain’t there, four-eyes?” he said, showing his brown teeth.

“Of course there is,” young Roosevelt said coldly.

“And a billfold in your pocket, too, ain’t there?” added the bearded man.

Theodore’s grin somehow grew broader. “Yes,” he said softly. “And it’s going to stay there. You three go about your business now and no one will get hurt.”

The two largest thugs began laughing at this and the youngest one joined in with his unpleasant cackle.

The leader reached forward. The second man produced a short-bladed knife almost identical to the one the youngest thug was again holding against the curve of Henry James’s belly.

“Do not touch me,” said Roosevelt to the bearded thug. The tall man in the hat must have had twenty pounds and six inches of height to his advantage.

“What’re you going to do when I do touch you, four-eyes?” The broad, filthy hands were poised in front of Theodore’s thick torso and gleaming watch chain.

In fairly fluent German—which James could follow—Roosevelt said, “I shall kick you in the balls, make your teeth eat my knee, and then head butt your paltry brains out.”

James noticed that young Theodore hadn’t been sure of the German word for “butt” and had just used Kopfbütten as an approximate. He’d also used the informal du form which an adult would use with an intimate, a child, or an animal. His intention there was clear when he’d used the fressen form of “to eat”—dogs and other animals fressen —rather than the human essen . Theodore carefully removed his pince-nez by its ribbon, set the glasses in an inner vest pocket, and patted the pocket. His smile was thin now with his huge teeth no longer gleaming.

The tall leader laughed and said, “We got a couple of midget Dutch-men here, boys. Let’s beat the shit out of them.”

The two tall men stepped forward. Roosevelt and King took three hasty steps backward, as if they were preparing to run. The leader widened his stride to cut Theodore off.

Roosevelt opened his arms wide, leaned backward with that massive torso, and kicked the tall man between the legs with the kind of full-force, wound-up, full-legged kick that Henry James had only seen on rugby fields. The polished toe of Theodore’s small, expensive boot all but disappeared in the leader’s vulnerable crotch. The impact was so great that James saw the leader-thug’s feet actually leave the ground.

The big man fell to his knees and started to crumple, his hat falling forward as his head came down. He was using both hands to hold his testicles and the moan that came out of him did not sound human.

As the man’s face arched down, Theodore’s right knee came up more rapidly than it had in the kick. James heard teeth snap and the man’s huge nose break.

The thug’s upper torso rocked back—his face smeared with blood—his eyes closed but now on the same level as Teddy Roosevelt’s blue gaze. Roosevelt grabbed the thug by the shoulders, jerked him toward himself, and smashed that great, square, Roosevelt forehead against the leader’s face and temples so hard it sounded like an ax smashing against thin wood.

The leader went down on his back and did not stir.

The other big thug had not been watching idly. He had his knife out jabbing forward and swinging from left to right even as his long arms went wide as if to encircle Clarence King before stabbing.

King had hefted his heavy cane to his shoulder and now he swung it like a baseball bat. Henry James had never played baseball as a child, but his brother William had . . . and loved it. And during the last two weeks, James had suffered John Hay’s enthusiasm for the sport, so when King made his powerful swing, James guessed that it was more like one of the batters from the Boston Beaneaters—expected to win the pennant this year—than a hitter from the perennially last-place Washington Senators.

The beaked stone at the head of the cane caught the advancing thug full in the face. James saw and heard the cheekbone snap, the nose break, and both he and the youngest thug next to him actually had to jump back to avoid the geyser of blood and teeth that came their direction. The big man dropped his knife and fell to all fours.

Five-foot-six Clarence King had grown a belly but the decades of mountain climbing and mine digging had turned his thighs and arms to powerful engines. He kicked the man in the backside so hard that the thug skidded forward on his ruined face on the alley cinders, his arms and hands trailing palms up.

The boy, who was left-handed, swung away from James and swung his arm back to stab Clarence King in the side.

Henry James had written William just before Christmas that he’d been putting on far too much weight, that he was going forth belly-first into the world these days and it did not please him. He’d told William how he’d hired a fencing coach for three two-hour workouts a week, but also how—while James very much enjoyed the exercise—it hadn’t taken an ounce off his weight.

Now James raised his own walking stick and brought it down on the boy’s wrist as if he were driving a tent peg with a mallet. Surprisingly, his aim was perfect—he heard the head of the cane make loud contact with the scrawny young thug’s wrist bone and the knife dropped to the alley cinders.

The young thug shouted in pain but he was very, very fast. He dropped to one knee to retrieve the knife before James could even get his cane raised again.

King stepped forward and planted his polished but heavy boot on the knife blade. The young thug tugged but the blade snapped off at the hilt.

“Trade knife,” said Roosevelt from where he stood astride the fallen leader. “They give them away to the Indians by the gross out in the Badlands. Not worth a damn.”

King had shifted his cane to his left hand and suddenly, from a coat pocket, he pulled out a jackknife which he flicked open with a snap of his wrist. The blade was enormous for a folding knife—at least seven inches long, James thought, and tapered to a terrifying point.