A Perilous Journey of Danger and Mayhem #1 by Christopher Healy

Author:Christopher Healy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-08-23T16:00:00+00:00

27

The Bandit King

“OOGIE,” PEMBROKE CRIED. “Is it true what the kid says?”

“Nae a word, Pembroke.” Oogie MacDougal gave his lieutenant a crooked grin. He pointed to the balcony and ordered, “Fetch they bairns!”

Several of the gangsters looked to one another for a hint of what to do.

“The bairns, the wee weans!” Oogie barked. One gangster tentatively reached for a bowl of pretzels. “The children!” Oogie shouted.

Several thugs bounded upstairs to the mezzanine. There was probably time to duck out the window, but Molly saw Emmett’s eyes locked with Bell’s and stood fast by his side. The goons lugged them downstairs and dropped them next to Bell.

“Ah cannae hawp ye fell fur sic stories,” Oogie said, waving a long, thin finger in Pembroke’s face. There was a clear cruelty in MacDougal’s grin, but beyond that, nothing about the fragile-looking, rail-thin man seemed overly threatening.

“Stories?” Pembroke said. “Oh, the kid’s stories. You think I believered them? Is that what . . . ? I think that’s what you said. Well, no! I never doubted ya for a second.” But the tremor in his voice betrayed him.

“Ah kin see it in yer een, gowk,” Oogie sneered. “Gang tak’ a nap.” Molly had no idea what MacDougal had said, but she knew a threat when she heard one. The gang leader grabbed a fistful of Pembroke’s shirt, hoisted the man over his head—one-handed—and threw him across the bar into a shelf of glass mugs.

“How the heck is a guy built like a drinking straw so strong?” Molly muttered to Emmett.

“I had no idea he was,” Emmett replied.

“Shh. Hear that?” Bell whispered.

Hear what? But then Molly noticed it: With every step Oogie took, there was a metallic creak. MacDougal had some kind of machinery under his coat.

As two Green Onions hauled away the moaning Pembroke, Oogie strode over to his captives. “Emmett, mae wee mukker. Yer a pernicketie jimmy tae fin’.”

“Emmett,” Molly whispered out of the corner of her mouth, “I officially apologize for doubting your ‘I couldn’t understand him’ story.”

“He said you’re a hard man to find,” explained Bell. “I grew up in Scotland.”

“I know,” said Molly.

“I’ve git three questions fur ye, Emmett,” MacDougal said.

“That’s far fewer than I have,” Bell muttered.

Oogie raised one finger. “Whaur’s mah dosh?”

“Where’s his money?” Bell translated.

Emmett looked down and bit his lip. Just lie, Molly thought. Say it’s stuffed in a tree, buried on an island, booby-trapped in a pit full of deadly vipers—anything.

“In the river,” Emmett said.

MacDougal’s face grew a full shade redder. “Whaur ur mah guns?”

“Where are his . . . guns?”

“It was a mistake. I didn’t know who he was,” Emmett said to Bell. Then to Oogie, “The guns are with the money.”

The gang leader sucked his teeth and took a step back. When the crimson in his cheeks faded, he raised a third finger. “How come shouldn’t ah murdurr ye this minute?”

Bell winced. “He wants to know why he shouldn’t—”

“I got that one,” Emmett said. Wobbly and bleary-eyed, the boy looked as if he might have passed out had a burly gangster not been holding him up.

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