The Anubis Gates

“Sure.” He looked away from them. “Leave, all of you that are leaving. And fetch a constable if you feel you must—but first consider what sort of thing you’d be freeing. Remember the stories this man and woman just told you, and call to mind the stories I’m sure you’ve heard already.”

Most of the people in the room scrambled for the door, though two more men hung back to join Maturo’s group. “Just realized,” said one of them, “I was going to leave clean-handed, though damn glad it was being done. That’s no way to go.”

Maturo clapped a hand over Dog-Face Joe’s mouth, then said casually to Crank, “You know, Crankie, I believe I’ve changed my mind. I’ll just take him to the police after all. You understand? The last thing you heard me say was that I was going to take him, alive, to the authorities.”

“Got it,” said the pale-faced Crank, pouring himself a liberal slug of neat brandy. “Thanks, Doug.”

Maturo, assisted by his companions, led the struggling figure toward the back door.

“Uh, Doug?” said Crank in a strained voice. “That’s the… back door you’re leaving by?”

“We’re going to go over the fence.”

The nine vigilantes half-dragged, half-marched their captive outside into the pub’s small back lot, and Maturo glanced around at the mounded snow, which in the far corner had nearly buried a derelict beer wagon. A section of the yard wall had been knocked down, doubtless due to the mishandling of some craneful of ironwork by an employee of the forge whose yard adjoined the pub lot. There was no one visible in the forge yard, and the shadow of the unattended crane fell across the pub’s back door.

“You,” said Maturo, pointing at one of the men with him, “see if there’s a length of rope anywhere about that old wagon there. And—where’s John Carroll? Ah, there you are—do you think you can climb that crane?”

“If somebody will lend me some gloves I can.”

Dog-Face Joe’s other glove was wrenched off and the pair was tossed to him, and a moment later he was scrambling over the tumbled and snow-dusted masonry of the gap in the wall.

“There’s a rope here,” called the man Maturo had sent over to the wagon, “tied around the yoke. It’s frozen on, but I think I can get it loose.”

“When you do, meet us in the forge yard,” Maturo called. To the woman he remarked, “It looks like we may be able to do this properly, and not just hold his head in a horse trough.”

In a few minutes the nine people were grouped in a half-circle around a four-foot-tall nail keg on top of which Dog-Face Joe, his head held high, stood on tiptoe, for the rope had proven to be a few inches short, and if he let his heels rest on the barrel top the slip-knot around his neck would be uncomfortably tight.

“If you let me down,” Joe said hoarsely, peering down at them over the swell of his cheekbones, “I’ll make you all rich. I’ve kept money from each of my hosts! It’s a fortune, and I’ll let you people have it all!” He twitched his scarf-bound wrists.

“You said that before,” Maturo told him. “And we said no before. Say some prayers, Joe, you’re on your way out.” Maturo was clearly uneasy about the situation, and he kept squinting up at their captive suspiciously.

“I don’t need prayers,” said Joe. “My soul’s in good hands.” His confident words must have been a bluff, though, for an instant later he gave a despairing wail and shrieked, “Wait a minute! I’m D—”

The tightening halter choked off any further speech then, for Maturo had kicked the barrel out from under him with such force that it rolled away across the snow-covered pavement as the old man rocked and swung on the end of the suddenly taut rope, his eyes staring with intense supplication out of the darkening face and his mouth forming words that he had no breath to vocalize.

Maturo, who seemed to have dismissed his misgivings now that the deed was done, waited with a faint smile until the grisly pendulum had rotated around to face away from the executioners, toward the yard and the low sun and the still-rolling barrel, and then he leaped onto the shoulders of the dangling man as though to get a piggyback ride.

The snap of the breaking neck was loud in the chilly stillness, and John Carroll turned away and vomited into the snow.

* * *

Doug Maturo entered the dingy office building over whose door could still faintly be seen painted-out letters that spelled DEPILATORY PARLOR, locked the door behind him and walked across the floor through the slanting bars of gray light that came in around the edges of the shutters, past the dusty counter to the dark hallway and the stairs. Halfway up the stairs he became aware of voices on the floor above, and he trod very softly the rest of the way up.

“… In Jermyn Street near St. James Square,” Dundee was saying. “The rent they’re asking is exorbitant, but as you remarked the other day, I do need a better address.”

“Honestly you do, Jake,” replied a young woman’s contralto voice. “And I like the notion of you worrying about rent! What did you say you make every day?”