This was the plan: Abe would leave Lil and, unbeknownst to him, Nedly in the lobby of the Mingo while he went up to his rooms to look for something he could pawn for petrol money so that the Zodiac could make the trip to the Hawks Memorial Orphanage out at Bun Hill. While Abe checked some facts with the caretaker, Mr Kolchak, Lil was going to interview the kids who had known Ned Stubbs to see if any of them remembered anything about the night he went missing.
But plans change: while Lil and Nedly were waiting in the dimly lit lobby, perched on the corners of a mangy-looking velveteen settee pockmarked with cigarette burns and smelling faintly of old dog fur, the front door was kicked open so hard it hit the wall and rebounded on the person in the doorway.
Craig Weasel recovered quickly from the blow and stood silhouetted on the threshold, like the sheriff in the last chance saloon. He was slickly dressed in an aubergine suit, his gelled ponytail protruding stiffly from the back of his head like a cherry stalk.
‘What’s he doing here?’ Lil dropped quickly out of sight and scuttled behind the settee. Keeping low, she crawled to the end of it and peered out from between the dusty leaves of a plastic Swiss cheese plant.
Weasel strode up to the glass phone booth in the corner of the lobby and unhooked the receiver. He dialled a number and then waited, grinding his teeth impatiently. Finally someone answered.
‘I’m here now, sir,’ he replied, silky smooth. ‘If he’s poking around, he must have got a sniff of something. Either him or that kid we picked up on the CCTV … Yeah, the one with the ears.’
Lil crawled back out of sight. ‘What does that even mean?’ she hissed to Nedly, the colour rising in her cheeks. ‘Everyone has ears.’
Nedly shot her a glance. ‘How do you know he’s talking about you?’
Lil scowled while she tried to think of a good response. ‘My signature look is the yellow mac – why didn’t he say, the one with the yellow mac?’ She untucked her hair and smoothed it over her ears.
‘Either way,’ Weasel continued into the receiver, ‘if he’s looking for trouble he’s found it.’ He fell silent as Abe’s distinctive tread sounded on the staircase: heavy-footed, landing on each step like he was punishing it for something.
‘Ex-Detective Mandrel,’ the mayor’s bodyguard said smoothly, hanging up the receiver with a soft click. ‘I was just coming to see you.’
Lil snuck a glance to see Abe leaning on the banister; he flicked the brim of his hat so it tilted back on his head. ‘Who are you?’
‘Aha ha ha!’ Craig Weasel laughed mirthlessly, clearly peeved that Mandrel didn’t know who he was. ‘It seems like you and your jug-eared sidekick have been making a nuisance of yourselves at City Hall.’
Abe walked slowly down the last of the steps and into the lobby.
‘Look, pal, I don’t know who you are or what you’re talking about, so why don’t you beat it before I get the wrong idea?’
Weasel seemed pleased with the way things were turning out. ‘Why don’t you make me, old man?’ he said, dangling the challenge.
Abe wasn’t biting. ‘Get lost,’ he growled, taking another step forward.
‘Oh, I’ll get lost all right …’ Weasel replied in an oily voice.
‘Good.’ Abe made to walk by but when they levelled Weasel gave him a shove.
‘Hey!’ Lil protested, standing up. Both men were distracted by her sudden appearance but Weasel recovered first. Abe turned back just in time to get a foot in the chops as Weasel delivered a sudden roundhouse kick.
‘What the …?’ Abe reeled back clutching his jaw and tripped over the Swiss cheese plant. He flailed around on the floor like a beetle on his back until Lil darted forward to help him to his feet.
Abe shook his head to clear it, felt his jaw gingerly and then peeled off his mac. He kept his eyes fixed on the younger man, sizing him up as he tossed Lil his hat.
‘Are you going to frighten me to death with a striptease, Mandrel?’ Weasel sniggered. He was dancing on the spot like a boxer, his hands raised and held flat like he was about to do some serious karate.
Abe pushed up his sleeves. ‘Stay back, kid,’ he ordered Lil with a flick of his head.
Lil hurried out of range to her spot behind the settee. She crouched there with just her head visible over the back of it. Nedly lurked awkwardly at the edge of the action.
Craig Weasel grabbed his own shirt with both hands and ripped it apart, exposing a purple silk kimono tied with a black sash. He kicked off his shoes, and his trousers slid down to reveal matching purple silk bottoms.
‘Yah!’ winced Lil. ‘Who wears a karate outfit under his normal clothes?’
‘A man who is prepared for a fight!’ cried Weasel, drawing a pair of black-handled nunchucks out of the pile of discarded clothes.
‘What the …?’ Abe said again.
‘Give it up, old man.’ Weasel spun the chain around at high speed in a Web of Death; Lil could see his shark-like grin through the silver and black blur. He switched moves to pass the nunchucks over his shoulders, retrieving them from behind his elbows like some crazy dance routine. A smug expression clung to his face; his hair had started to come free of its ponytail and hung in crispy strings.
Abe tucked in his chin and put up his fist ready to box. When Weasel saw him his serious fighting face erupted in a gale of laughter. ‘Ah,’ he sighed, wiping the tears from his eyes. ‘Seriously? OK, let’s do it.’
He passed the nunchucks from hand to hand, spinning the chain in a figure of eight. Abe watched, bewildered; a couple of times he tentatively jabbed in with his left hand but the wooden handle rapped his knuckles hard and he withdrew.
‘Come on, Abe!’ Lil shouted. She looked around for something to throw him – something that would get in the nunchucks’ way. There was a telephone directory in the phone booth … Lil scrambled around to it and she lobbed the fat book straight at Weasel’s back.
It knocked him slightly off balance for a second and he stumbled forward; the nunchucks went slack and Abe drove him back with a flat rubber uppercut to the chin followed by a left hook. He seemed almost as surprised as Weasel to have got a punch in.
Then it all started to go wrong. Pleasantly startled by the effectiveness of his first two slugs, Abe delivered a quick volley of punches to Weasel’s rock-solid belly with no noticeable effect. Weasel snagged Abe by his shirt and spun him, then he grabbed the nunchucks by both handles and clamped them round Abe’s neck like a giant nutcracker.
He squeezed the handles closer together and the more he squeezed, the purpler Abe’s face grew, and the more his eyes bulged.
‘Let him go!’ shouted Lil, running at Weasel. She grabbed his hand and tried to prise the fingers away from the nunchucks.
‘He’s freakishly strong,’ she gasped, trying to loosen the vice-like grip.
Lil bit down on a knuckle bone. Weasel yelped and pulled his hand away – the chain loosened for a moment and Abe choked back a breath. He managed to get his fingers under it before Weasel pinched the handles even tighter as he transferred them to one hand – and with the other he grabbed Lil by the scruff of her coat and lifted her off the ground. He tucked her head under his arm and let her dangle in a headlock.
‘Melp!’ Her cry was muffled by silk and Weasel’s armpit. ‘Melp!’
‘Take your hands off her!’ Abe wheezed, trying to get a grip on Weasel’s slippery kimono.
‘There’s no one left to help you, shortie,’ Weasel sneered and tightened his grip.
Lil kicked him hard on the shin.
The low lights in the lobby flickered and went out. The telephone in the booth started ringing and the front door juddered. Weasel turned quickly this way and that, dragging his captives with him. The light came on again and straight away the bulb overhead blew, sprinkling Weasel with fine, hot glass.
‘This place is a dump!’ he cursed. ‘Come on, someone wants to see you.’ He started walking towards the door, Abe and Lil in tow.
Lil saw Nedly rush at Weasel, shouting. Then, with a pop, he vanished. Weasel’s face drained of all colour. He shivered dramatically and then started twitching. His arms went limp and both Abe and Lil dropped to the floor, clutching their necks. Abe was the first to get to his feet. Lil scrambled up a second later and grabbed a chair, holding it in front of her like a shield.
Craig Weasel was acting very strangely; he was looking at his hands as if he’d never seen them before, and he was turning his head mechanically as though he was about to break into a robotic dance.
Abe frowned. He raised his fist again ready to fight but when Weasel didn’t respond in kind he dropped it again. Weasel was prancing, raising each leg like a puppet on tangled strings. Lil lowered her chair.
‘What are you playing at?’ Abe growled at him.
Weasel didn’t seem to know. His eyes had a glazed look and his movements were jerky as if he wasn’t in control of his body. Plus, he seemed to have forgotten how to use the nunchucks. He swung them back and forth like a whip, occasionally cracking himself on the head with one end.
Lil and Abe stood watching, transfixed, and then Weasel turned to them with a curious expression, grabbed his own throat as though he was being strangled and screamed: ‘RUN!!!’
Lil made a grab for Abe; she clasped his prosthetic hand and pulled it right off. Flustered, she shoved it back at him and shouted: ‘Come on!’
Abe snatched his hat and mac off the settee and they hurled themselves down the front steps and into the street. Without warning Nedly burst through the wall beside them and sped past yelling: ‘Run!’ Lil watched him tear off round the corner and then picked up speed.
They ran four blocks before they were sure that Craig Weasel wasn’t following. Abe found a bench and collapsed there with his head between his legs. He was huffing and puffing; one button of his shirt had come off and his tie was loose and over one shoulder. Lil was bent over double trying to get her breath back. Nedly stood apart – he looked both terrified and exhilarated.
‘You – were – a-mazing!’ Lil gasped at Nedly between breaths. ‘How did you do that?’
‘Thanks,’ Abe wheezed bashfully. The sweat was soaking through his shirt and his face was pale. ‘I guess I’ve still got a few moves.’
Lil spluttered out a laugh, which she expertly turned into a cough. She winked at Nedly who shrugged back at her. ‘It just happened,’ he said, blushing grey and looking at his shoes.
Abe fanned himself with his trilby. ‘That guy –’
‘Weasel,’ Lil inserted.
‘Indeed,’ Abe agreed. ‘That weasel was as crazy as a coconut.’
‘No, I mean his name is Weasel. He’s the mayor’s bodyguard. He said you’d been looking for trouble at up at City Hall.’
Abe snorted. ‘I was just chewing the fat with the guy on the desk about McConkey getting marshmallowed. Come to think of it, that Weasel character was in the lift with the mayor when he came down to the lobby, but he didn’t stick around. The mayor took one step out of the lift, and then got in it again and went back up.’
‘Why do you think that was?’
‘I figured he’d forgotten something.’ Abe wiped the sweat off his face with his handkerchief. ‘But you know there is something about Mayor Dean. The way he looked at me, it was clear he didn’t like what he saw.’
Lil scratched her nose thoughtfully. ‘Remember those stolen files Minnie was talking about, the ones the Klaxon are going to use against the Mayor’s Office? Maybe Weasel thinks you had something to do with that.’
‘I don’t know but somehow I’ve tugged a thread on a spider’s web, and now that ginger tarantula is twitching to get at me.’ He pulled at a tear in the pocket of his rumpled suit jacket. ‘This was my best suit.’ He dropped his gaze down to his shoes.
‘Look, kid, it’s not safe for you to be around me right now. I need to stay low until things cool off while I work out what all this means. I’m going to have a lie-down in a dark room, maybe a drink or two.’
Lil furrowed her brow. ‘But the orphanage …?’
‘For all I know Weasel was intending to fit us with a couple of pairs of concrete galoshes and take us swimming in the Kowpye. How do you think I’d look your mother in the eye if I got you killed, eh? Think about it, she’d never forgive me.’ He sank his chin into his collar.
Lil persisted. ‘The orphanage, you said …’
‘We’ll go another time. Get yourself home, kid. Keep out of trouble until I figure this out.’ He patted his pockets and then grimaced. ‘I’d give you some money for the bus home but I don’t have any.’
‘Forget it,’ said Lil. She was tired of people handing her money for the bus when what they meant was get lost.
They watched the detective limp off into the distance.
‘So, is Abe off my case again now?’ Nedly asked despondently.
Lil gave him a rueful smile. ‘Don’t worry – I’m still on the case, and I never give up.’