William Monk 16 - Execution Dock

marble palace floating on the lagoon towards the silk roads of the east.
    The sea lanes of the world met here: the glory, the squalor, the heroism, and the vice of all humanity, mixed with the riches of every nation known to man.
    He faced the question deliberately.
    What would Monk have done were it someone he loved who faced exposure and ruin from Phillips? Would he have protected them? Belief in your ideals was one thing, but when it was a living human being who trusted you, or perhaps deepest of all, who loved and protected you in your need, that was different. Could you turn away? Was your own conscience more precious than their lives?
    Did you owe loyalty to the dead? Yes, of course you did! You did not forget someone the moment the last breath left their lips.
    He looked around the skyline to the north and south, and across the teeming water. This was a city of memories, built of the great men and women of the past.
    Around midafternoon of the next day, Monk faced the opulent receiver known as Pearly Boy. He had been known that way for so long nobody could remember what his original name had been, but it was only since the death of the Fat Man the previous winter that he had taken over a far larger slice of business along the river, and prospered to the degree of wealth that he now possessed.
    He was slender and soft-faced, and he wore his hair rather long. He always spoke quietly, with a very slight lisp, and no one had seen him, winter or summer, without his waistcoat, which was stitched with hundreds of pearl buttons that gleamed in the light. He was the lastman one would expect to have a reputation for ruthlessness not only for a hard bargain, but if necessary, with a knife— pearl-handled, of course.
    They were sitting in the small room behind Pearly Boy's shop in Limehouse. The shop was ostensibly to sell ships’ instruments: compasses, sextants, quadrants, chronometers, barometers, astrolabes. Set out in order on a table was a variety of dividers and parallel rules. But Pearly's main business took place in the back room, largely concerning stolen jewelry, objets d'art, paintings, carvings, and jewel-encrusted ornaments. He had already taken over most of the Fat Man's territory.
    He looked at Monk blandly, but his eyes were as cold as a polar sea. “Always ‘appy to ‘elp the police,” he said. “What are you looking for, Mr. Monk? It is ‘Monk,’ isn't it? ‘Eard word, you know. Reputation.”
    Monk did not take the bait.
    “Yes, indeed,” he said with a nod. “Something we have in common.”
    Pearly Boy was startled. “What's that then?”
    “Reputation.” Monk was unsmiling. “I understand you're a hard man too.”
    Pearly Boy thought that was funny. He started to giggle, and it grew and swelled into rich chortling laughter. Finally he stopped abruptly, wiping his cheeks with a large handkerchief. “I'm going to like you,” he said, his face beaming, his eyes like wet stones.
    “I'm delighted,” Monk replied, sounding as though he had smelled spoiling milk. “We might be of use to each other.”
    That was language Pearly Boy definitely understood, even if he was dubious about believing it. “Oh, yeah, an’ how's that then?”
    “Friends and enemies in common,” Monk explained.
    Pearly Boy was interested. He tried to hide it, and failed. “Friends?” he said curiously. “‘Oo's friends o’ yours, then?”
    “Let's start with enemies,” Monk answered with a smile. “One of yours was the Fat Man.” He saw the flash of hatred and triumph in Pearly Boy's eyes. “One of mine too,” Monk added. “You have me to thank that he's dead.”
    Pearly Boy licked his lips. “I know that. I ‘eard. Drowned in the mud off Jacob's Island, they say.”
    “That's right. Nasty way to go.” Monk shook his head. “Would have fished the body up, but it was hardly worth it. Got the statue, which is what mattered. He'll keep down there nicely.”
    Pearly Boy shuddered. “You're a hard bastard, all right,” he agreed, and Monk was not sure whether he meant it as a compliment or not.
    “I am,” Monk conceded. “I'm after several people, and I don't forget either a good turn or a bad one. Who is Mary Webber?”
    “No idea. Never ‘eard of ‘er. Which means she's not in my business. She int a thief nor a receiver nor a customer,” Pearly Boy said flatly.
    Monk was not surprised; he had not expected her to be. “And I'm after a boy named Reilly, and even more than that, I'm after