Snuff the Magic Dragon (and other Bombay Family Bedtime Stories) (Greatest Hits Mysteries) (10 page)

The clouds began to lift and the moon cast shadows around the trees. This kept me back, farther from him, but by the time I followed him back to his home, I knew what I had to do to complete the next phase of my plan.

To be perfectly clear—I’m not all that into grave robbing. But I was less into killing an innocent person to suit my goals. A young man about the same size as me had perished earlier in the week. He had the same hair color and had died with no marks on his body. I was pretty sure he’d eaten the “wrong” berries, due to the small smudges of red around his fingernails. But I said nothing, because they are suspicious of such things. They pronounced him dead by act of God, and that was it. No one knew him. He was a single guy like me. It was sad but very helpful.

The grave was hidden—we did that so the Indians wouldn’t know about our deaths. The Pilgrims had lost so many people since they arrived, they didn’t want the Indians to say, “Hey wait just a minute! Look at all those gravestones! I count two hundred at least! Those bastards are fudging their numbers so we won’t attack them! Get ‘em!”

I didn’t follow John Billington the next night. Instead, I dug up the poor, young man, carefully replacing the dirt to look like a reasonably fresh grave and covering the tracks I’d made. The man was not heavy, but the job was disgusting. Working with decaying bodies is not a lot of fun. But his hair was longer than mine and he needed to be wearing my clothes when found. Cutting the hair wasn’t a problem. But have you ever undressed and dressed a dead man? I don’t really recommend it. Sure, it has its useful applications, but his clothes stank, and his body was stiff as a board.

Rigor mortis. I’d forgotten about that. According to my plan, the body would be found fairly quickly after his “murder.” This man’s fingers, arms and feet were completely rigid. I’d have to soften him up. Another disgusting job.

Oh, I knew what to do. My family trains us for all kinds of weird stuff that you hope you’ll never need to use, and yet somehow always do. Once, back when I was still pretty new to this whole assassin thing, I poisoned my target with arsenic. Unfortunately, I used a bit too much, causing the dead man’s skin and lips to turn blue. He was supposed to die of natural causes, so this was a bit of a problem. I won’t tell you what I did to make him look in the pink of health, but I will never, ever do something like that again. I still shudder when I think of it.

Basically, fixing rigor mortis boils down to joint and muscle manipulation. It is hard, repetitive work, and I don’t recommend it. After a couple of hours of this, I was at last able to finish dressing the poor bastard. Even though it was dark, I could tell that he would pass for me. That almost made it worth it.

I managed to carry the body to the edge of my land, at the very border of John Billington’s. It was very late. I waited.

It didn’t take John long to stagger my way. He stumbled over roots and rocks, cursing as he went. Clearly, he was far more drunk than usual—which was very useful. Once he got close, I snuck up behind him and pinched a nerve in his neck. It’s a secret move, so I can’t tell you about it. The man went down like a sack of potatoes.

I took John’s gun and aimed it at the dead man’s head—close enough to blow his face clean off. I fired. That would be heard. I posed John with the gun and fled back to my cabin. I did not go inside; my belongings would have to stay behind. I rolled up the dead man’s putrefying rags and stuffed them into a small pack I’d left hidden in the woods and turned south.

It being an unusually warm September, I was able to spend a few days living in a cave, a mile away from Plymouth. I had stocked the cave with food and clean water and was pretty sure I could live there a few days at least. At dusk, I would hide in the trees near town and listen to the gossiping sentries who guarded the gates. The leaves had not fallen, and they provided me with enough cover to hear that John Billington was going to be tried in the murder of John Newcomen.

Just to make sure, I hung around a little longer until I was certain it was over. Thanks to a couple of women out gathering mushrooms a few days later, I found out that on the thirtieth day of September, John Billington was hanged by his neck until dead. My job was over.

I’d booked passage back to England in Boston, under a new name, and made it there before the ship sailed. After several weeks of horrid autumn weather, the ship docked in England, and I found my way back home. The Council was pleased with my work, which was good, and I even managed a little holiday in Italy.

When I got home I was thrilled to find out that Cairo Bombay had arrived in the New World safely. He’d discovered some small island far south and west of where I’d been. According to his letter, his son Mauritius and he were planning to turn it into a private home for the Bombays. He’d named it Santa Muerta, and there were no other people there. Cairo’s letter said the sunsets were
beyond
fabulous—whatever that means.

I should probably write to them. Maybe they needed help fixing the island up. No one would remember that I vowed never to set foot in the New World again…right?

“Oh, bugger,” I hissed through my clenched teeth as Rasputin staggered into the courtyard of Moika Palace. Please tell me they haven’t decided to finish him off here, on the streets, with witnesses.
How did those idiots screw this up now?
Honestly, I should never have asked men to do this. Men were not that smart. Assassination was a woman’s game.

Morons. I was working with amateurs. This whole thing could’ve been wrapped up yesterday, but noooooo. This is what happens when you leave a job up to a room full of drunk, arrogant men. Make that men in general. I was not terribly fond of men as a rule. There had never been a man in my life who had not let me down—and there were no women who had.

I wasn’t really a man hater. Just not a man prefer-er. They were silly, puffed-up things who needed their egos stroked constantly. Women were far superior intellectually. There was the women’s suffrage movement going mad in England. I was anxious to get home and apply myself. But first, I had to deal with Rasputin—who was, very inconveniently, still alive.

Bloody hell! Women were so much more cooperative. If you killed them, they remained thoughtfully dead.

I slid from my hiding place and raised my Browning pistol to fire. Dmitry emerged from the doorway and began shooting. He acted like a bloody cowboy, firing rapidly—too many shots that didn’t hit their mark. I tried not to roll my eyes as I aimed my pistol and fired, hitting Rasputin in the back. This made him stop, and allowed me to drift back into the shadows as Dmitry then shot the bastard in the head.

Dummy Dmi, as I liked to call him, didn’t even notice that I was there or had fired. What a git. I watched as the man kicked Rasputin in what was left of his head.
Really?
What good did that do?

Felix came out the door, and I grabbed his wrist. “You fool! Get the Mad Monk inside before the police arrive!” I vanished again and watched as Felix and Dmi dragged the bloody body of Rasputin inside. They forgot to shut the door. Wonderful.

Felix and his servant Buzhinsky came out onto the courtyard and whispered to each other about the possible methods of blood removal (due to the rather unfortunately large stain on the ground), when a policeman came into the courtyard asking about the shots he heard.

Tell him you heard it too, but don’t know where it came from
, I thought fervently in their direction. I mean, the policeman had already arrived and heard shots. Denying that there was such a sound was sure to look suspicious.

But Felix just shrugged. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

Buzhinsky nodded limply. Idiots.

The policeman identified himself as Vlassiyev and asked again for the source of the noise. He was not convinced.

Both men shrugged, saying nothing. Vlassiyev frowned but didn’t move. Bugger.

I slipped around the bushes and approached from the street. Upon seeing the three, I walked over as if I was a stranger.

“An auto backfired,” I lied in perfect Russian and pointed south. “Over there.”

Felix’s eyes bulged at the sight of me. I didn’t want to have to give myself away. Only Felix knew about my existence. But the policeman was not leaving, and I still had a body to get rid of.

“Thank you,” Vlassiyev laughed. “That makes sense.” He left and I went the other way, in the direction I came from, and slid back through the door of the palace.

Felix (who was earning his Twit of the Year status) entered the hall and immediately attacked Rasputin’s body with a two-pound cast iron dumbbell. What was he doing? Blood splattered his clothes. Was he nuts? I could do nothing but stare, doing my best not to faint as the sight of all that blood. As far as Dmi and the others were concerned, I was Olga, a mere servant in the household. Most of the others had been sent away for the evening except for me and Buzhinsky. And Buzhinsky just thought I was filling in. I don’t think he even noticed that it was me who came up to them a few moments ago.

How did this go so wrong? It was an easy job! Everything should’ve gone smoothly!

Maybe I should start at the beginning. My name is Versailles Bombay, and I was in Petrograd for an assignment. It was supposed to be simple. Usually, when the Council who hands out the assignments says that, it
isn’t
easy and usually requires months of planning and research. But they said this one would be, because everyone hated the victim. I wished they were here now so I could show them how “easy” it really wasn’t.

I was chosen because I could speak Russian. My mother was Russian and brilliant. My father was a Bombay and a trained killer. It didn’t matter that I was a woman, because in our family those things don’t factor into any equation, which is good. And in my humble opinion, with no offense to my father, men weren’t as good as women when it came to killing people. They were just too forthright. Stick a sword in him and leave him dead. Where’s the finesse? Where’s the craftsmanship?

I’d spent three months freezing my arse off in Petrograd (which was three months too many if you asked me), lining this whole thing up. I’d convinced a low-level prince that Rasputin was the devil and had to be disposed of. It wasn’t hard. Rasputin was a dirty old man hiding under the robe of a cleric. He slept with every aristocratic woman he could, drank and ate too much and wandered around town with the royals like he was
bloody brilliant
. Russians hated and feared him. It was supposed to be a no-brainer.

All Bombays have a specialty—whether it’s poison, ice picks, pistols, whatever. We all have our favorite methods. My specialty is getting others to do the work for me. I had sort of a gift of gab that allowed me to persuade anyone to do almost anything. I didn’t usually handle the knife that was plunged into the heart, or even load the dueling pistols with bullets. Not my thing, really.

Okay, to tell you the truth—I’m squeamish. The sight of blood, or even a splinter, makes me faint. Can you imagine growing up, trained by a guild of assassins, and being afraid of blood? Yeah, they thought it was funny too—especially my stupid, male cousin Leeds. The bastard. So I developed another way—the way of persuasion.

In the past this might have been frowned upon by our family, but with the recent introduction of Scotland Yard’s ability to pick out a person by reading the prints their fingers left behind on a murder weapon, the Council had shifted their thoughts on just how hands-on a Bombay had to be in their work.

It takes a certain kind of skill to talk others into doing your dirty work for you. The Council thought I was useful, although jealous cousins now and then liked to bring up that I didn’t actually kill anyone directly. It didn’t matter—the Council liked what I accomplished. That was all that mattered.

Rasputin was a large man with sharp, beady eyes, greasy hair and a tangled forest of beard. What did the empress see in him? I mean, Alexandria was Queen Victoria’s granddaughter! She should’ve been smarter than that
.  She was part English and a woman, for crying out loud!

Granted, the rumor that Alexandria was an imbecile had floated around for quite a while. My spies said she liked shiny things and couldn’t answer simple one-word questions without shouting, “There’s a platypus in my pantaloons!” But Rasputin was gross. No, as long as I lived, I’d never understand her interest in him. It was clear the tsarina wasn’t going to fire him anytime soon, and according to my contract, it was time for Rasputin to go.

But this team of men I’d organized for the job tonight! Everything might have worked out okay, had they not been stupid enough to let Rasputin walk out the door just now. I had no confidence that they could accomplish the job. If they botched it in front of witnesses, they would end up in prison, and Rasputin might be saved. While I didn’t care about these gits all that much, things were getting messy. I didn’t like messy. The Bombays didn’t like messy. They were a bit bitchy on that point.

The worst part was that I’d failed at this same mission two years ago. It was a miracle the Council didn’t have me killed. But I can be pretty crafty, and I managed to talk them out of it on the condition that I didn’t fail this time. It was close. But they agreed, providing I didn’t tell the other Bombays. There was no way I’d let my cousins know about the failure. Leeds Bombay is a misogynistic arsehole who’d drop me if he knew the half of it. Doesn’t everyone have a cousin like that?

Back in 1914, Rasputin first came across my assignment list. I spent weeks recruiting one of his crazy, female followers, Guseva. Rasputin liked wandering aimlessly about Russia—on foot. Why? Who knows. Of all the countries I’d consider just walking around in, Russia would be at the bottom of the list. It’s enormous with thousands of miles between goat farms, and the winters were bloody awful. But since he was considered “mad” I guess it’s just who he was.

Anyhoo, he was going to visit his wife and children in Siberia. I set it up so Guseva would jump out and stab him. Guseva was a loon. Totally nuts—but I still thought she could pull it off. Originally a follower of the Mad Monk, she later claimed abuse at his hand. She was the easiest mark I ever turned.

She gleefully gutted Rasputin, then stood there and watched as his intestines spilled out, screaming, “I’ve killed the Antichrist!” That’s right. I’d told her he was the Antichrist. Don’t judge me. It worked…somewhat.

Except she hadn’t killed him. After stuffing his guts (mmrph—sorry, just threw up in my mouth a little) back in and some miraculous surgery I didn’t think even existed in Russia, Grigori Rasputin was just fine. Damn it. That should have been my first clue to be more particular in whom I recruited.

But this was some seriously creepy stuff I could not have anticipated. Rasputin, stuffed his innards back in, was sewn up, and survived. If this didn’t add to his spooky factor, nothing could. The man was like a ghost or something. On top of it all, this only added to his claims that he was divine. And that was bad.

This time, he wasn’t going to survive. It’s bad enough when your target doesn’t die the first time, but the second? No Bombay has ever missed his or her mark. I’d go down in family lore as the assassin who screwed up twice. And then they’d hunt and kill me. (Leeds would probably volunteer for the job.) I needed that like I needed a hole in the head…a hole that Rasputin currently sported in his big, smelly head.

So this time I’d recruited Prince Felix Yusupov, and he recruited his loudmouth friend Dmitry Pavlovich to take care of things. Felix was an idiot who liked to dress up like Lillie Langtry, with full makeup, and sing show tunes. Dmitry was a loudmouth member of the Duma—Russia’s version of Parliament. They added Dr. Lazavert to the group and a plan was hatched…mostly by me.

Dmitry and Lazavert never knew that. Felix was the only one in contact with me. The others didn’t know I existed. Felix’s ego immediately seized upon my plan as his (which was the intention, of course), and the other two fell in.

It was such a simple idea. Rasputin had a thing for Felix’s gorgeous wife, Irina. Felix would imply that Irina wanted to have sex with Rasputin and that he’d organize it. Once at the house, the doctor would lace food with cyanide, and the evil holy man would drop dead. The boys would drop his body in the river, and that would be the end of that.

Only it wasn’t. Not even close. Sigh. The things I do for this job!

Problem number one: the men chose December for the deed. Really? December…in Petrograd? I chose Felix for his palace’s proximity to the Moika River. All they had to do was open a window and dump the body in it in the middle of the night. What they hadn’t thought of was that because it’s
December in Petrograd
, most bodies of water were frozen over.

I tried to get them to wait until summer, but they were so excited about getting the job done that Felix stopped listening. That led to an impromptu drive all over the city this morning where they tried to find a river that wasn’t totally iced over. A different river. A not-the-Moika-that-has-easy-access River.

Problem two: Felix Yusupov. Felix was married to the tsar’s niece. I thought that was rather hilarious because Felix was a well-known homosexual. But whatever—to each his own, right? Felix got it into his head that he should prepare for the murder. He took it upon himself to arrange a meeting with Rasputin through a close friend under the guise of needing some help with chronic pain. The ditzy socialite happily obliged, and Felix met Rasputin at Rasputin’s apartment for some “therapy.”

The problem with this was that Rasputin was drawn to Felix’s handsome features, and, for whatever reason, Felix was drawn to Rasputin’s “methods.
" And so he became a regular at the Mad Monk’s place, acquiring the nickname “Little One,” and becoming familiar with Rasputin’s daughter, Maria, and the staff.

Word on the street was that he and Rasputin were now lovers. Felix kept seeing him in opposition to my instructions, stating simply, “Nonsense. I always use the
back
stairs.”

Which led to problem three: Rasputin. The man was a complete gossip and braggart. He couldn’t keep a secret to save his life. The bastard bragged publicly, at length, about the naughty things he’d been up to and with whom. Felix was convinced Rasputin would keep the staged rendezvous with Irina a secret.

Except that he didn’t. Rasputin told his daughter, Maria. He informed his servants, “Little One is picking me up at midnight to pleasure his wife.” He even called a few friends and let them in on the secret. Hell, for all I know he took out an ad in the papers.