The Reluctant Assassin (22 page)

Charismo’s collection of half-masks was displayed on a board on the wall, each dangling from a dedicated brass hook.

This guy sure likes his masks, Chevie thought, tapping a mask that looked like solid gold but was actually painted plaster.

Nothing is as it seems.

Almost unconsciously, she began humming the intro of a song that her father had played over and over again on his beatup turntable: Eric Clapton, “Behind the Mask.”

Now this is real music, squirt
, her dad said every single time he dropped the needle on the record.

Behind the mask. I wonder what
is
behind the mask.

There was a crack in the display board running right down the center. No, not a crack—a gap, because the board was actually a set of doors.

Where is the handle?

There was no handle, so Chevie put a finger against each door and pressed. The doors gave slightly and then swung open to reveal a recessed cupboard and bulletin board. There were line drawings pinned to the board and an assortment of objects placed on the shelf.

Calm down, she cautioned herself. And don’t miss a thing.

“Oh, my God,” she said aloud, surprised that her suspicions had proved to be spot on. “I’ve got you now,
Tibor
.”

What a fancy name he’s given himself, Chevie thought. Much fancier than Terry.

Suddenly she heard the rapid footfalls of a big person jogging up a nearby set of stairs.

I need proof for Riley.

Chevie snatched two small objects: a glittering ring from its velvet cushion, and the second to get her home again. She was back in the chimney before the masks stopped rocking on their hooks.

Inside the chimney, Chevie plotted her next move.

I need to get Riley alone and show him what I found. I hate to destroy his hero, but Charismo is not quite as gifted as he pretends to be.

She inched down the shaft toward the light below.
The light. My room.

No one entered the chamber above. The footsteps she’d heard had been a false alarm. Still, it would be foolhardy to go back up. She should count herself lucky that she’d escaped detection this time.

Chevie imagined her Quantico instructor screaming abuse in her ear, and this motivated her to descend a little faster. In three minutes flat her boots were sticking out of the fireplace in her bedroom.

She twisted onto her stomach and pushed herself into the room, once again feeling that immense sense of relief at being free from confinement.

I made it
, she thought.

A voice above her said, “Well, well, well. What do we have here, a-droppin’ down the chimney? One of Father Christmas’s elves, perhaps?”

If that voice belongs to Barnum, the humongous coach driver, then I am in trouble, thought Chevie.

It did, and she was.

Albert Garrick always felt a little jittery passing through Mayfair. In spite of his dandy getup and his long hair, a style affected by many a lordling, he had the nagging idea that his humble origins somehow shone through his eyes for all to see.

In spite of everything I know, everything I have seen, I cannot make myself comfortable on these streets.

He tried to bolster his own confidence with an inner pep talk:
Buck yourself up, Alby. You are no longer a starving urchin combing the cobbles for the scraps from a rich man’s table. Time to scrape that shame off your soul like dog filth from the toe of your boot.

A flower girl actually curtsied as she approached. “A carnation for your buttonhole, m’lord.”

This simple greeting raised Garrick’s spirits more than his own strictures ever could, and he smiled with more sincerity than he had in some time. He reached behind the girl’s ear and found a shiny sovereign.

“This is for you, my dear. Buy something that is as pretty as yourself.”

The maid stammered a thank-you, then stood a-staring at the currency in her hand as though it would melt.

Garrick continued down the north side of Grosvenor Square toward the residence of Tibor Charismo, the man who had hired Otto Malarkey to kill him.

There was a well-tended private park opposite Charismo’s famous dwelling, reserved for residents only and accessible by a heavy, locked gate. Armed with his magician’s tools, Garrick was no more troubled by the gate than a dog would be by a keep off the grass sign. In seconds he was reclining on a clean, varnished bench, admiring the Himalayan rhododendrons, and keeping a close eye over their bobbing heads on the fabulous Charismo residence.

So, now Tibor Charismo wishes me dead, as he once did Riley’s family.

For it had been Tibor Charismo who had contracted Albert Garrick over a decade ago to dispose of Riley’s entire family in their Brighton residence. And now, all this time later, he had obviously discovered Garrick’s deception and decided to settle the affair with some finality.

Could that be the entirety of it? Charismo would pit himself against me over the life of a boy?

Garrick thought that if the situation allowed, he would put this question to Charismo before he killed him.

There was some movement in a window. Garrick’s rejuvenated eyes had no difficulty recognizing the figure, even from this great distance.

Charismo.

Garrick sat up as though the bench had been electrified.

So, my nemesis is at home today. That makes my job easier.

He was suddenly glad that he had tipped the young flower girl so heavily.

You see, Albert. It is like Felix Smart’s mother always said: If you do nice things, then nice things will happen to you.

Inside the house on Grosvenor Square, Tibor Charismo was treating himself to yet another
macaron
while the barbiturates he had mixed into Riley’s tea took hold of the lad’s brain. The sweet delights of the belly had always been Riley’s weakness.

Once the boy’s eyes had glazed and his arms hung limply by his sides, Charismo began his questioning in earnest, revealing the true motives for his kindness.

“Now, Riley, let me explain what is happening. I have given you a blend of barbiturates that I cooked up myself. A truth serum. You could try to fight it, but you would simply damage your brain, so it would be far better for your mental health if you answered all my questions truthfully. Do you understand?”

“Yesh,” said Riley, around a fat tongue. He felt drunk and compressed by the weight of air above him.

Charismo clapped his hands. “Excellent. Now, first question: Did you come through the wormhole, or were you just squatting in the house on Half Moon Street?”

It did not seem strange to Riley then that Charismo should know about the wormhole. Perhaps the spirits had told him?

“Wormhole,” he slurred. “From future.”

Charismo frowned. “I imagine you somehow were pulled into the time tunnel on Bedford Square, then returned through Half Moon Street, correct?”

“Yesh. Pulled and returned. Future smells lovely.”

“And Miss Savano—what is that sweet girl’s part in this affair?”

Riley closed his eyes and smiled. “She is FBI. Special agent pretty.”

Charismo stood, wringing his hanky like a turkey’s neck. “FBI? F . . . B . . . blooming . . . I.”

“Like my old dad. FBI. I saw his shield.”

“Like your old dad?” said Charismo slowly, allowing the words to sink in, confirming his suspicions. “Of course. I heard Garrick had a boy. But I didn’t know you were
that
boy.” He steered his mind back to Chevie.

“Has she come for me?”

“For you, sir? Oh, no. We simply flee from Garrick. He wants the Timekey. It’s the last one for this wormhole. Or it
was
the last one, till Otto Malarkey pulverized it.”

“The last one,” breathed Charismo, relaxing considerably. “Well, then, I am safe. Garrick should be deceased already, and even if he isn’t, he will have no inkling that I have another key.”

“That’s wrong, sir.”

Charismo flapped his kerchief, irritated. “What’s wrong, boy?”

“Garrick is not deceased. Everyone makes that mistake.”

“Not Tibor Charismo,” said Tibor Charismo. “I have taken care of Albert Garrick. He crossed me once, but never again.”

Tibor popped the final
macaron
into his mouth and hummed while he chewed. “That’s the chorus of a new song I am crafting entitled ‘We All Live in a Yellow Submarine,’ which I won’t be able to release until submarines become commonplace.”

The door burst open and the manservant Barnum entered, dragging Chevie behind him. She was bound fast with coils of rope, but still struggling.

“What ho!” said Charismo. “This is unexpected.”

“I found ’er in the chimney,” said Barnum, tossing Chevie to the floor at Charismo’s feet.

“Unexpected?” said Chevie, cheek burned by the carpet. “Didn’t the spirits warn you?”

Charismo poked Chevie’s shoulder with the tip of his pointed slipper so that she lay on her back. “That is not how it works”—he placed a finger to his temple—“Agent Savano of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

Chevie sneered. “Hey, why don’t you ask those spirits if they can tell you anything about Terry Carter, a crooked banker from New York City?”

Charismo shrieked at the mention of Carter’s name, then kicked Chevie in the stomach, driving the air from her lungs.

“Put her on the chair,” he ordered Barnum, sitting down to rub his toe. “Then leave us.”

Barnum’s hands were quick to the job, but his brow was puzzled. “Leave you, master? But this gal has strange maneuvering in her, and you are not yourself entirely, throwing kickings and such.”

“She is tied, is she not?” said Charismo irritably. “Do as you are told, but wait outside the door. There will be some lifting before long.”

Barnum threw Chevie a threatening look and left the room, muttering about how a man never knew where he was, and a little manners would not go astray.

“Apologies,” said Charismo. “Sometimes Barnum forgets his place.”

Chevie jerked herself upright in the chair. “Nice desk. Who gave you that? The spirits of cheap and vulgar?”

“I shall not be manipulated to anger,” said Charismo. “The great Charismo rises above base emotions.”

“How about Terry Carter? What does he do?”

Charismo toyed with a letter opener in the shape of a dagger. Or perhaps it was a dagger in the shape of a dagger. “Terry Carter is dead. He died almost thirty years ago, when I arrived here.”

Chevie noticed that Riley was not reacting to any of this and seemed to be humming a Beatles song.

“What did you do to the boy?”

Charismo waved his fingers as if to say
Hardly anything
. “Oh, him. I gave him a few drops of sodium thiopental and a little deadly nightshade. I favor it as a mix. You speak the truth and then die. Don’t worry about the lad. Riley will drop off to sleep and never wake up, which is about the best way to go in Victorian London. You’re going to adore it.”

Chevie struggled against her bonds, but they had been tied by a man who tied things up as part of his job description.

“The great Tibor Charismo. You’re nothing but a common murderer.”

Charismo seemed genuinely offended. “No. Absolutely not. I am the greatest human being since Leonardo da Vinci, whom I suspect may also have been a WARP veteran. I write, I compose, I
see
. In the twentieth century I was nothing, a Mob banker. Here, I am the darling of high society. Why on God’s green earth would I ever go back?”

“I see how it could happen,” said Chevie. “You knew the Mob would track little Terry down eventually. No matter how many of them you put away with your testimony, there would always be more wiseguys. But in Victorian London, you could really be somebody.”

“Exactly,” said Charismo. “And do you know how? I have a photographic memory. Everything I ever read, saw, or even heard, I remember forever. Simple as that.”

“Genius,” said Chevie, half meaning it.

Charismo rose to his feet. “Queen Victoria herself listens to my advice. As soon as the Feds told me I was moving to Victorian London, I read everything I could about any subject I thought might be useful. I know things about world politics, sporting events, simple inventions, fashion trends. It’s a gold mine.”

Chevie took a few breaths to calm herself. “Okay, Terry, listen to me. Just let us go. Give the kid an antidote. Don’t become a murderer on top of everything else.”

“Become a murderer?” said Charismo laughing. “This is Victorian London. Even with my gifts, you have to carve your way to the top, or hire a big strong Barnum to do it for you. When I found Barnum, he was bleeding to death in Newgate prison; now he is loyal to me unto the grave.”

“Really?”

“No. I hired him in the pub, but I plan to use the Newgate story in my memoirs.”

“You don’t have to kill the boy, Charismo. I’m the law here. He’s just a kid.”

Charismo smiled, perching on the edge of the desk. “Oh, he’s the one I need to kill most of all. You still haven’t put it together fully, Agent, have you?”

“Oh, I think I understand most of it,” said Chevie. “It’s a pretty basic tale of human greed. Little Terry Carter decides he likes it in the Victorian era and so hires Albert Garrick to cut any ties to the future, specifically Agent Riley and his family.”

Charismo showed no remorse. “That was not my fault. Bill Riley was not supposed to marry anyone. I was meant to be his priority; but, no—Agent Riley decides to fall in love, so I had no alternative but to unleash Garrick on his entire family. No loose ends.”

Chevie looked at him. “But you needed Bill Riley’s Timekey?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Charismo. “Garrick delivered it to me without ever suspecting what it was. How could he? All programmed and ready to suck Bill back to the twentieth century—the twenty-first now, I suppose. I have it secured safely, just in case I need to escape this time zone. There will always be medical procedures—chemotherapy, for example— that I may need to avail myself of. That is the only reason I have not disassembled the portals. Of course, I only recently found out where the portals were.”

“Well, poor little Mob banker Terry wouldn’t be told the locations. Information like that would be strictly need-to-know.”