LITMIR.BIZ

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good in a scuffle. Not anymore. I know my limits.”

      “No, you don’t.”

      “Sometimes those bastards bring sticks and bricks. We need Duncan. Duncan!”

      Julian stops him. “We don’t need him, and he’s busy besides. Just stand on my right, will you? And look tough.”

      “I got no problem looking tough,” Wild says, moving around to Julian’s right. “But usually only Duncan can take care of the looters.”

      “Tonight, you and I are going to take care of them.”

      With skepticism but no fear, Wild points at Julian’s hand. “You want my glove to cover that up? As it so happens, I have an extra.” He grins.

      Julian shakes his head. “I want whoever comes to see my hand. It acts like an anesthetic. It lulls my opponents into a false sense of confidence in their own strength. My missing fingers become my lucky fingers.” He smiles.

      “Okay, say they’re lulled. Then what?”

      “Then, you and I will solve problems together. We’ll get creative.”

      “I can’t use a bat.”

      “Do you see a bat on me?” Julian says. “But you should carry a knife, Wild.” Recalling Edgar Evans’s Bowie knife that saved his life even as it nearly ended it.

      “I’m a righty. Can’t use a knife with my left hand.”

      “Sure you can. I was a righty, too. Once.”

      Wild appraises the severed half-hand, the man. “You want to show me how?”

      “Not in the next five minutes. Have you got a hammer at least?”

      “For you?”

      “No, for you.”

      Wild shakes his incredulous head.

      “What, you can’t even swing a hammer left-handed? You just spent fifteen minutes whacking a useless kitchen cabinet!”

      For now, knifeless and batless and hammerless, Julian and Wild stand shoulder to shoulder on a pile of bricks and wood. The siren wails up and down. What has Julian’s girl gotten herself into? Doesn’t she know it’s the end of the line?

      “Stepney has it worse,” Wild says as they wait. “Anything near the river is a shambles. That’s how you gotta look at everything—some poor fucker somewhere has it worse. Like: sure my arm is gone, but that’s why the good Lord thought to give me a spare.”

      “How’d you lose it?”

      “Don’t want to talk about it.”

      Julian glances at Wild’s suddenly distorted face, at his body struggling not to double over, and looks away.

      The ambient light from the nearby fires illuminates the street. In the glimmer, Julian’s eyes search for Mia. He spots her a few houses down, comforting the old woman who has stopped wailing. His gaze steadies and rests on her. When he blinks, he catches Wild staring at him.

      “Who are you?” Wild says. “It’s like you know Folgate from another life.”

      “That must be it.” He nudges his new friend. “Heads up,” Julian says quietly. “On my ten.”

      From the left, three young guys appear stealthily out of the darkness, heading for the house in front of which Wild and Julian stand. “See, if you hadn’t put out the fire in the damn kitchen, they’d walk right past us,” Julian says to Wild, and louder to the trio, “Move along. You have no business here.”

      “And what business do you have here?” one of them says.

      Wild shows them his Home Guard badge.

      “Step out of the way, cripple,” an intense-looking chap says, approaching them. “You too, old man,” he says to Julian. “You don’t want to get hurt.”

      “You don’t want to get hurt,” Julian says.

      “Nice one, Jules,” Wild whispers.

      “Thanks, Wild.”

      The three boys laugh. They taunt Julian. “What are you going to do, swat at us? Point at us with your pointer?”

      “He can’t even make a V sign!”

      Julian turns his body sideways and kicks the talking bloke straight in the chest. The guy falls backwards. His head hits the bricks. “Move, Wild,” Julian says, and to the attackers, “Go on, you two. I told you, you don’t want to get hurt.”

      The two young men menace Julian, both edging to his right, where they assume he is weakest. One guy swings a stick. Julian catches the stick in the crook of his right elbow and chops the guy on the side of the neck with his open left palm. The boy reels, is thrown off balance, and now Julian is armed. He hits the guy once on the forearm and even harder across his shoulder, all secondary but debilitating injuries. He squares off against the remaining youth. “Did you see how gently I tapped your friend’s arm with his own stick?” Julian says. “I could’ve bashed him in the face. And then he’d be dead. But, the night is still young. So what would you like to do? Run? Or fence?”

      The dude clearly has learned nothing. He swings. Julian blocks, and kicks him in the knee. Howling, the guy drops to the ground. The entire confrontation has taken no more than twenty seconds.

      Wild is overjoyed. “Finch, Dunk!” he yells. “Come here. I can’t fucking believe it! Did you see that?”

      “He hit the dirt with such a beautiful thud,” Julian says with a light smile.

      Finch and Duncan run over. Finch is not overjoyed. “No reason to knock them out like that,” he says dourly. “The cops will be here soon.”

      “And now there’s less for them to do,” says Julian.

      “Don’t listen to a word Finch says, Jules,” Duncan says. “That was amazing.”

      “You got lucky, that’s all,” Finch says. “You caught them off guard.”

      “You’re right, I did,” Julian says agreeably. “Otherwise I wouldn’t stand a chance.” He winks at Wild.

      Wild throws his one arm around Julian. “Jules, you’ve been baptized by fire. You’re now officially a member of our Ten Bells Watch. Finch, go get him a Home Guard badge.”

      “I can’t get him anything without an ID.”

      “Get him an ID, too, Finch, or I’ll beat you with his stick,” Duncan says cheerfully.

      Finch points to the groaning men. “What do you propose to do with them?” he says to Julian.

      “Get me some rope, Duncan,” Julian says. “More may be coming, and I don’t want to worry about these three.”

      “The rope we have is not for tying up delinquents,” Finch says. “The rope is for rescues, for saving lives. In case people are trapped and need to be pulled out.”

      “Yes, thank you, Finch,” Julian says. “I know what rescue means. I don’t need a lot. I do need a knife, though.”

      Duncan brings him a tangle of rope and a knife.

      “No one here knows how to tie a knot,” Finch says. “So I don’t know what good the rope will do you.”

      In half a minute, Julian binds all three men’s ankles and wrists with handcuff knots. Grimly Finch looks on, while Duncan and Wild celebrate. “We finally found our third musketeer, Dunk!” Wild says.

      “We sure did, Wild.”

      “So what was I, then?” says Finch.

      “Aww, you’re not a musketeer, Finch,” Wild says. “You’re more like Richelieu.”

      Finch

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