"We've got a job for you," said Machine.
"About time," said Loach. I was beginning to wonder if you'd decided to pay me for standing around looking beautiful."
Machine's eyes narrowed but he didn't rise to the jibe. He went over to the wide, panel traceried window overlooking the main gaming floor of The Halls of Valhalla, his huge, meaty body moving with a grace that should have been impossible for a man of his size. On the other side of the thick, green tinged glass, five metres below, individual gaming tables were picked out by chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, making them stand out in the huge, darkened room. A hubbub of conversation rose from the dozens of men and women in expensive evening clothes gathered around the tables, their attentions focused on whatever game was being played there. Now and then one of them would look up at the traceried window behind which Machine and Loach were looking down at them, perhaps wondering if Badger himself were in residence, watching the crowd of people so busy and so happy to make him richer.
"There's a guy who owes money to Mister Badger," said Machine without turning to look at Loach. "A lot of money. A one time frequenter of this establishment. The dealers were instructed to let him win every so often, to keep him interested. To keep him coming back. We were able to make a small but steady profit from him for many years, but then he began to lose control. Made larger and larger wagers. It's a familiar pattern. They all go that way sooner or later."
Loach nodded. It had been equally true back in his day.
"He started losing more and more money," Machine continued. "The dealers were instructed to stop letting him win. We were hoping to discourage him, make him go away, but he would still win anyway, on occasion. Games of chance are unpredictable like that. He got deeper and deeper in debt. We've given him every chance to pay it off. Sent friendly reminders, asked family members to intercede on our behalf. All to no avail. He would offer a few crowns now and again, as if that would be enough to placate us, always promising he would be good for the rest if we only gave him more time.
"Mister Badger doesn't like using the ultimate sanction. A living customer will keep coming back, make more money for us, but a dead customer is good for nothing. He was bad for business, though. Everyone else who owes money to Mister Badger sees him holding out and is encouraged by it. They think they might also be able to hold out longer. The time has come to send a message, therefore."
"He's a problem," said Loach, "and you need your problem eliminator."
"Right. You think you can eliminate this problem for us?"
"Just tell me who he is and where he lives."
"His name is William Paxton. He lives on Newbridge Street but he's currently staying in a house on Gable Road. Tyler knows the place, he'll take you there. You'll take a couple of lads with you as insurance, just in case anything goes wrong."
Machine turned to face the other man. He was so massive across the shoulders that it was like watching the opening of a bank vault. An object so large and heavy that, once it was moving, its own momentum would overcome virtually any force that tried to stop it.
His hard grey eyes examined Loach's face, searching the bruises and contusions from their fight two days earlier for any trace of guile or treachery. "Make no mistake," he said in his deep, rumbling voice. "Your mission is not to teach him a lesson. You are not going there to collect the money he owes us. He had his chance. You are going there to kill him. Quick or slow, hard or easy, I leave that to you so long as he'd dead when you leave the house. Anyone else in the house, leave them alive to tell the tale so long as they've got no proof they can take to the police that it was us. We want everyone to know it was us, we just don't want them to be able to prove it was us."
"I understand," said Loach. "He's got to know we're coming, though. He's probably skipped town by now."
"We've got people watching him. Street urchins for the most part, but they're reliable. They say he's hiding at his sister's house."
"Okay."
"Make a good job of it and you have a long and profitable career with us," said Machine. "Get it wrong..." He left the words hanging and Loach nodded his understanding. He left the room, leaving Machine to turn again to look back down at the main gaming floor.
There were three men waiting for him in the corridor outside, one of whom Loach recognised. It was one of the men he'd fought in the cloak room two days before, when he'd first come to introduce himself. Tyler, Loach guessed. He still had the bruise on his jaw from the blow with which Loach had rendered him unconscious. Loach held out his hand. "No hard feelings?" he said.
Tyler glared murder at him, but then he reached out to take his hand. "No hard feelings," he replied. "Occupational hazard."
"Right. You're here to show me to Paxton's house."
"Right. You got everything you need?"
"Yes." Loach still had his knife at his belt. It was the only contemporary weapon he felt comfortable using, but he was confident it would be enough against one civilian. A civilian who had to know that someone was coming to kill him, he reminded himself. A desperate man was the most dangerous creature on the planet, and people who grew overconfident soon became dead. Even so, though, he was confident that a single gambler in out of his depth would be no more than a moment's trouble for him.
He was more concerned with the three men Machine was sending with him. Machine had to know that Loach had ambitions of replacing him. Did Tyler and the others have secret orders to kill him the moment Paxton was dead? The police would find two men who had apparently killed each other, motive unknown. They would simply close the file and Machine would move on, the ambitious upstart instantly forgotten.
The first time around, back in his old life, Loach had been patient. He had taken twenty years to move up the hierarchy one small step at a time, spending as long as it took at each level to gain the trust of the people above him before arranging their seemingly accidental elimination. This time, though, with the priests searching for him, he didn't dare be so cautious. With the very greatest optimism he might have a year before they found him. More likely it would be less. Maybe a lot less with Jane still out there somewhere, the idiotic, spoiled rich girl who might make a mistake at any moment that would give them away. He had to move fast, therefore. He had to take over this criminal organisation while he still had time to use its resources. He already had the outline of a plan worked out. It was risky, but if he didn't try he was dead anyway when the priests sent the soldiers after him. Right now, the most dangerous thing he could do was play it safe.
"Let's go then," he said, leading the way along the corridor towards the stairs back to ground level. Behind him, his three companions gave each other amused glances before following.
☆☆☆
Reaching the street, Loach waved down a horse drawn taxi cab and climbed inside without waiting to see if the others were with him. Part of assuming the guise of leadership, he knew, was to give the impression that he just knew that others would follow where he led. Glancing back to see if they were, in fact, following was a sign of weakness and insecurity that would be spotted instantly. If they weren't following then he would do the job himself and report back to Machine that the others had deserted him. Machine's problem, not Loach's.
As he sat on the padded leather seat, though, he felt the wagon lurch as the others climbed in after him, and a moment later Tyler was in the seat facing him, the two nameless henchmen facing each other as they took the other two seats. Loach called up to the driver through the speaking vent before Tyler had a chance to. It was important that he be seen to be the one in charge. "Gable Road."
"Very good, Sir." They heard the slap of the reins and the small carriage clattered off down the street.
The windows had curtains that could be drawn across. They were currently tied back with crimson cords. Loach reached up to untie the cords, allowing the curtains to fall, covering half the window. A pedestrian watching them go past wouldn't think that the passengers were trying to conceal their identities, but by hanging free the curtains covered enough of the window that Loach was hidden from view just by leaning into the corner, as if tired and resting. Hiding without appearing to hide. He saw Tyler smile approvingly as he did the same thing to the curtains beside him, and the two henchmen followed suit. The inside of the carriage became dark as the light getting in was halved.
Loach didn't know where Gable Road was and so had no way of knowing when they'd reached it, but the carriage stopped after a few minutes and the moment he saw Tyler beginning to stand he stood first so he could be the first out of the carriage. They were in a dingy back street, he saw. A dark, narrow road lined with dark, narrow houses. There were a couple of young street urchins, ten years old or even younger, leaning by the elbows against a high, half timbered wall. They were the only people in the street who weren't walking somewhere so Loach strode straight over to them. "He still there?" he demanded.
The grimy children stared owlishly up at him, then looked at Tyler, coming to join them. "Answer me!" Loach demanded in a loud, commanding voice that made them jump in alarm. "If you've let him sneak away..."
"He's still there!" said the older of tbe two children, his eyes widening with fear. "I swear it, Mister! We got Tubbs an' Curly round the back making sure he don't sneak out that way, just like I said we would."
"Good," said Tyler, reaching into a pocket to produce a handful of small copper coins. He gave the children two each. "Now scarper."
The child put his fingers to his mouth and gave a piercing whistle. A moment later two more children, even smaller and grubbier than the first two, appeared running from a back alley. They joined the first two and all four children ran off together, their feet splashing in muddy puddles and sending sprays of brown water up their bare legs.
"He's going to bolt out the back when we go in through the front," Tyler said to Loach. "They always do. You take the back and we'll flush him out for you."
Loach nodded. Tyler was trying to re-establish his leadership of the operation, but this wasn't the moment for the two of them to spar like two bulls fighting for dominance of the herd, not with the killing about to start. Besides, it was a good enough plan. He scanned his eyes up and down the street, looking for policemen, but there was nobody but local residents going about their business, all carefully ignoring the new arrivals. They could sense that something was about to happen and they wanted no part of it.
"What number?" asked Loach.
"Five seven seven," replied Tyler.
Loach looked at the nearest house. It was numbered five seven one. The one next to it was five seven three. That meant that the house Paxton was hiding in was that one. He fixed it in his mind, then went down the alley the two younger children had emerged from.
The house he wanted was even easier to spot from the rear because there was a man climbing over an ivy covered wooden fence. Someone had seen the club enforcers arrive and had warned him, but not soon enough. He saw Loach and his eyes widened with terror. "I can pay!" he almost screamed, struggling to get his other leg over the fence. "Tell him I can pay!" Some part of his clothing caught on the wood and it tore as he pulled it free. He landed in the alley and scrambled back to his feet.
The alley was littered with weeds and discarded household items that tangled his feet and slowed him down. Loach reached him in seconds. He activated his combat app and his hand flew of its own accord to catch Paxton's wrist as it thrust a knife towards him. Loach twisted the other man's wrist, made him drop the knife, then picked it up with his other hand. No need to get his own knife covered with blood if he could use the man's own weapon against him. One quick thrust was all it took and the man was dead.
He left the knife in the body, merely wiping his fingerprints from the handle. He was still doing that when Tyler and the two henchmen reached him. "What are you doing?" asked Tyler curiously.
"In Lendaron they're experimenting with identifying people by the fingerprints they leave behind," lied Loach. It was the priests he was thinking of. "They're all different, did you know that? Everybody's got different fingerprints."
Tyler glanced momentarily at his own fingertips as if wondering whether Loach was pulling his leg. Then he pulled the knife from the corpse and threw it away. "Okay," he said. "Let's get out of here."
"Not yet," said Loach, though. The killing was over. Now was the time for the bulls to fight. He beckoned the henchmen towards him. "You two, take an arm each. Drag him back to the street."
"What for?" asked Tyler, scowling at this newcomer ordering his men around. He turned to the henchmen. Leave him where he is. The rats can have him."
"We gotta display him," said Loach. "We don't want people thinking he just skipped town. The whole world's gotta know that if you owe Badger money you pay or you die." He turned to the henchmen again. "I gave you an order."
"Someone will have called the police," Tyler pointed out. "We haven't got time for this!"
"There's always time to do things properly." He fixed one of the henchmen with his eyes and allowed his natural authority to shine through, the natural authority that had allowed him to take control of one of the twenty first century's largest and most powerful crime syndicates. Tyler couldn't compete with that and neither of the henchman paid him any more attention. They obeyed Loach's orders as if they'd been following him all their lives. They picked up the corpse between them and walked like three drunken friends back to the mouth of the alley.
Loach wasn't surprised to see that the street was now empty, but he was willing to bet that there wasn't a single window without an eye behind it. The two henchmen dragged the body out of the alley and dumped it by the side of the road. "That'll do," said Loach approvingly. "Let's get out of here before the police turn up."
No-one could have guessed that he'd just killed a man as he strolled nonchalantly down the street, not looking back to see if the others were following him. Simply knowing that they would be. If he had looked back, though, he wouldn't have been surprised to see the look of murderous hatred in Tyler's eyes as he slouched sullenly at the back of the small procession. Loach no longer feared the man, though. His power was broken. Tyler would either try to kill Loach over the next day or two, in which case Loach would kill him, or he would fall in line behind him. Either way, Loach had taken the first step. He was well satisfied with this days work.