Chapter Six
JWJ: Why don't you support the Republicans anymore?
Meg: Erm, let's see. Oh yeah, the first big one: GAS PRICES! I mean, who can afford to pay 2.19 a gallon? Around this time last year we thought that 1.40 a gallon was bad.
JWJ: Blame the Middle East.
Meg: Blame the Stock Market for trying to favor their shareholders over the rest of us!
JWJ: You don't know what you're talking about!
Emma: Actually, she's right.
JWJ: No she's not!
Lizz: Can we drop politics for once?
JWJ: NO!
Leigh: Why can't we talk about the story for once?
Meg: Good idea. Ok, just read the next chapter everyone!
Rose knew this was the end. She was going to die. How mythical the Boss had seemed in the safety of the surface. But here, in the darkness of the sewers, the Boss was as real as the gun Giovanni was pressing into her back.
He held a lantern in one hand, the gun in the other, barking out directions to Rose as he kicked her through the pipes. The cape was draped over his right arm.
He was as pleased as a child who has received what he wants most for Christmas, telling her about all the horrible things the Boss would do to her when he found out what a thief she was. She listened to the gory descriptions as if the Boss himself were there, passing sentence on her.
What she would give to have never started that ridiculous fight with her mother! She could have endured her mother's yelling and insults, because Elaine McGeady was not the Boss. But the Boss was Elaine McGeady one thousand times over. The Boss was everything Elaine McGeady could have been if she had only tried harder. The Boss was…
The Boss.
If there was a God in heaven, then he was not looking into the sewers of London, where a poor girl, barely seventeen years old, was about to meet the Devil.
Rose climbed out of a grate and looked around her. She caught sight of a large amount of clutter everywhere; large glass bottles, old barrels, trash the humans had no use for anymore.
Light came from an opening in a large barrel with an elegantly lettered 'R' on it. She saw some of the regulars from The Rat Trap standing around the entrance, talking to each other and smoking cigars. To the left there was a cell. Several more barrels appeared to be either inhabited or in use for unknown purposes. The place was filthy and chilly; the perfect lair for such a boogey-man as the Boss.
Giovanni, who had climbed out of the grate behind her, pushed her forward. "There!" he snapped, motioning to the barrel with the 'R'. "The Boss is in there."
After some dispute with the thugs at the entrance, Giovanni was allowed inside. He carried the cape as if it were made of gold.
The thugs looked curiously at Rose. They knew her from the pub as the runaway from Exeter, but they could not fathom what business she had down here.
She said nothing to them. She was too scared to trust herself to be able to speak.
Rose heard Giovanni talking in what sounded like a syrupy sweet voice, but she could not make out what he was saying. Then she heard another voice, low, but rather… suave? Soothing? Colorful? She had no idea how to describe it to herself. Was that the Boss? She had not expected his voice to be like that. Was it someone else? Perhaps the Boss was not in? Maybe someone else would deal with her.
But the cape… she had found it wrapped around her several times before. Had the Boss put it on her? No, he killed those who had no friends. Maybe someone else, someone who hated her, had stolen it from him. But who hated her? The other barmaids did not particularly like her, but they never showed any signs of hating her.
Who could have done such a thing to her, and for so many nights?
"YOU HEARD ME, GIOVANNI!" the voice shouted, suddenly striking terror into Rose's heart. The next moment Giovanni stumbled out of the barrel, still holding the cape.
The bartender shoved the cape into her hands. "He wants you to bring it to him yourself," he snapped, as if Rose had been the reason for his embarrassing exit.
She carefully folded the cape and smoothed the cloth over. She gulped, and then ascended the stairs. She looked back at Giovanni, expecting him to follow her inside the barrel.
He glared at her. "What are you waiting for? Go before he kills you out of impatience!"
Rose took the comment to heart. She hurried inside, clutching the cape to her bosom.
The room she entered was elegant beyond description. The marble floor, the gold throne, the champagne fountain, the human gold and jewels as big as she was, the rich purple curtains, the riches, the luxury… Rose stopped herself. There was no one in the room, save for a large man sitting in an armchair at a desk near the throne, his back to her. She could see his arms on the armrests, and the large, wormlike tail, by his brightly polished shoes.
She took a deep breath, and then approached the armchair.
Some say that moments like these seem to be the longest in their lives. On the contrary, Rose felt that the time taken to cover the distance from the entrance to the back of the chair could have definitely been longer… by about seventy-five years.
She had never felt more exposed in her life than when she stood behind the chair, waiting for the Boss to turn around and pretty much determine whether it was worth it to keep her alive or not. But the Boss was writing on a piece of paper with a silver pen and a white-gloved hand, and it did not appear that he was going to stop anytime soon.
Rose stood there for what seemed like an eternity. Her legs were weak from shaking. She felt dizzy and tottered once or twice. But just as quickly she pinched herself to awaken her senses to the imminent danger she was in.
She recalled everything she had heard about the Boss. 'He sneers at pity'… 'He kills the weak to pass the time'… 'He loves to play games with his prey before going in for the kill'…
Nearly ten minutes passed. She was so filled with fear and anxiety that she wanted to scream out loud, alert the Boss to her presence and get whatever he had in store for her over with. Had the Boss even heard her come in? Was this a game he was playing with her? Perhaps he did not even care about the cape?
Finally the gloved hand put the pen down. It opened a drawer, took out an envelope, took up the pen again, wrote something on the envelope, put the pen back down, put the papers he had been writing in the envelope, and then sealed it.
"Fidget!" the voice called out.
The peg-legged bat that Rose had seen so many times in The Rat Trap hobbled into the room. Running up to the desk, he said, "Ye-yeah?"
"Take this to Campbell immediately. And don't get sidetracked this time!"
"I won't, I won't!" the bat exclaimed as he took the letter and hobbled back out of the room.
Rose's throat tightened. All this time the Boss had not left his chair. She heard something like a click, and then saw a puff of smoke rise from the armchair.
"So Giovanni tells me that you've stolen my opera cape," the voice said unemotionally. Rose jumped at the sound of his smooth voice. "I told him no, that there is no possible way a barmaid could have made it all the way to my lair, taken my opera cape, and gone back to The Rat Trap without my knowing it. But-" here he motioned with a cigarette holder (Rose now knew what the click and the smoke had been from) "- he has the proof."
There was an uneasy silence.
"Now explain to me how you came across my opera cape, Miss McGeady."
Rose's eyes grew wide. The Boss knew her name! She was ready to panic. Wait a moment, calm down… he probably learned it from Giovanni. But Giovanni doesn't know my last name. No one does, because I never told anyone what it was.
"I… I don't know, sir. All I know is that I was asleep one moment, and awake the next, with this… your… opera cape… draped over me."
The Boss smirked. "Is that so?" The cigarette holder disappeared for a moment and then reappeared as another puff of smoke rose from the chair. "Miss McGeady, are you suggesting that my opera cape got up of its own accord and waltzed its way into The Rat Trap, only to throw itself over your-" he paused, and then chuckled, "-body?"
Rose only wished she could see his face. Maybe then he would appear less terrifying. Maybe then she would be able to read him, to predict how he wanted her to answer him.
"No, sir. But perhaps someone else has been doing it," she said, trying her best to appear honest, unafraid.
"Has? HAS? What do you mean, has? This has happened before?" the voice asked sharply.
Rose nodded, but then realized that that motion was pointless when she was not even facing him. "Ever since The Rat Trap was broken into last month, Giovanni told me I had to wait by the back door and let the Boss's… erm, your men, into the pub after hours. Several times I have fallen asleep, and woken up to find this same cape on me. Each time I took it, folded it back up, put it in my room, and went back to work. But whenever I'd gone back to my room later, it was gone."
"Gone, you say?" The Boss sounded amused. "Are you sure you weren't imagining things?"
"Positive."
"But my opera cape has never been missing until this morning. Now are you certain that you weren't imagining things?"
"I am as certain of that as I am of the fact that the sky is blue."
The Boss laughed. "Well, that fact can be debated," he said quietly. Then, in a louder voice, he said, "Are you suggesting that my cape has disappeared from right under my nose and been returned to me several times, without me noticing it until this particular incident?"
"Yes."
"You sound rather certain of yourself, Miss McGeady. Do you know who you are talking to?"
She hesitated. Was this a trick question?
"Yes… You're… the Boss."
He laughed again. "A poor alias for those too ignorant to hold their tongues. You are ignorant as well, Miss McGeady, but not in the same way as your customers and fellow coworkers at The Rat Trap. Theirs comes from an inability to handle official authority. Yours comes from inexperience of the real world. Otherwise, you probably would not be here now, would you?"
She thought it was a rhetorical question, until he repeated, "Would you not be here otherwise?" in an impatient voice.
"No sir, I wouldn't."
"No… no respectable young girl in her right mind would have ever come here." The Boss continued, "But here you are, in the sewers of London. You know what they say about the sewers?"
"No, sir."
"'Those who enter never return the same as they were before,'" the Boss said in a low, dangerous voice. Then he laughed again, as if it had been the funniest joke in the world. "Now, I could stay here, talking to you from this very comfortable chair. I don't have to see you, and you don't have to see me. Perhaps then you would have a better chance of leaving this place, forgetting about your time here, living a simple, carefree, ignorant existence. Or I could turn around, look into your face, and completely change the course of your life. You would no longer be one of the ignorant masses that this world has too much of." Then, more to himself than to her, "Which choice is better?"
Rose shivered. What is he talking about?
"What will it be? Ignorance or knowledge?"
"Sir?"
She heard another click, but it was loud and metallic.
"What will it be, Miss McGeady? Answer me, now."
Rose realized what he was doing. He was forcing her to choose her own fate.
She thought rapidly. Ignorance- she would never see his face. She could leave this underworld. She might be able to see her family again. But would she escape alive, or dead? Knowledge- she would see his face. She could not leave, because she might reveal his identity to the police. She would definitely never see her family again.
It would be a pity to be so ignorant.
He sneers at pity.
She took a deep breath. "Knowledge, sir. I want knowledge."
A long puff of smoke rose from the chair. One gloved hand appeared and set a revolver down on the table.
"Smart girl," he murmured, sounding impressed.
Finally the Boss got up from his chair, turned around, and faced Rose.
"Rose McGeady, allow me to introduce myself." He took her hand, raised it to his lips, and kissed it. She felt chills go down her spine. "Professor James Ratigan, at your service."
Luke: Dude!
Everyone: What?
Luke: That was a pretty cool chapter! I mean, you made the Boss so freakin' evil and weird. And how he was playing with Rose…awesome!
Meg: (drops jaw) That was the first really great compliment I have received from anyone on this review team. Wow, thanks.
Ratigan: Of course, I'd like to debate that last paragraph.
Meg: So what if you kissed her hand? You're being evil, because you were going to shoot her, and then you decide to be a gentleman. It throws people off.
Ratigan: You've been watching one too many chick flicks, I think.
Meg: I hate chick flicks.
Ratigan: Then why are all your stories so…
JWJ: Chick-flicky?
Ratigan: Not my personal choice of words, but yes.
Meg: (sighs) I don't know. I do it on purpose just to annoy you. Happy?