Hildy Johnson was breathing hard.
She was pacing back and forth in her kitchen, a cup of noodle juice clenched in her hands but forgotten as her mind wrestled with everything that had happened, and how to put it all together.
How to write it.
For once in her life, the words wouldn’t come. She had the scoop, but how could she break the story? Why would anyone believe her? She didn’t believe her and she had seen it all go down.
Ever since she’d met the strange young flap in the Land Registry office, it felt like she’d been nibbling at the edge of something. She’d only gone into the Land Registry because no journalist had any leads on the billboard who owned the warehouse, no one knew what purpose the warehouse had been used for, and the fire chief had ruled the source of the fire inconclusive. No fuel sources were found, no sign of arson, just six spontaneous combustions in different locations around the building, and wood that ignited as if it had been soaked through with gas.
Curious.
In Hildy’s experience, curious often meant story, and she had known from the start that there was a story here. No one came forward after the fire to claim the warehouse was theirs, which added to her curiosity.
At first, she had expected smuggling, or something illegal, like underground fights. She thought the Hoxton gang might own the warehouse. She even had a wild theory that SIS used it as a training facility for some of their officers. Her SIS source had been adamant it wasn’t their warehouse, and the criminals found unconscious in a half-sunken canal boat were Sabinis. The Sabini and Hoxton gangs were rivals, and the Sabinis weren’t much involved with smuggling. They preferred to control racetracks, run protection rackets, and bribe police. DS Northwoods was almost certainly in their pocket, and that pointed to Darby Sabini, or more likely one of his underlings, as the warehouse owner.
The Land Registry was just meant to point her in the right direction. Instead, it gave her an entirely new path. There was no way the Sabini gang were involved with expensive prosthetic manufacturing and supply, unless it was through a protection racket.
The racetracks they controlled attracted the upper class. They ran gambling rings for the aristocracy. The Sabini’s definitely could have been involved with the brothel. So, one definite Sabini property, one maybe Sabini property, and two that absolutely couldn’t belong to the Sabini’s, all under one fake name.
It could be a coincidence. Two different people using the same fictional character as a pseudonym wasn’t that far-fetched. It was a very popular book. It could be that the Sabinis met some nob through the racetracks and let him hire some guards for his warehouse.
She’d spent the next night watching the brothel, just in case someone turned up. She sat in a tree across from it, in Beaufort Street, and watched politicians, lords, a well-known theatre critic, and a high-ranking police officer enter and leave. She wrote their names in her notebook, and descriptions of the men she didn’t know, so she could research them later.
The night wore on, and she started yawning, her eyes wearily blinking of their own accord. She was ready to call it a night when a shadowy figure dropped from a tree just a little to her left and crossed the road to the building. She hadn’t even realised anyone was up that tree.
The shadowy figure reached the wall and began scaling it with strange ropes. Hildy didn’t know anything about climbing, but she was still impressed by the figure’s skill as it reached the top floor and slid in the window.
Hildy carefully slipped from the branch she was on, to the brick wall, then lowered herself from that, dropping the last few inches to the ground.
Suddenly a force hit her. She staggered against the wall as brick dust and leaves rained down. There were tears in her eyes, and her drawers were wet. Her breathing was laboured; her bones seemed to be shaking.
Nothing physical had touched her, it was sound, a roar so loud it struck like a hurricane. She took a moment to get her breath back, then glanced at the building.
Hildy turned and headed along Beaufort Street, away from the brothel. She was curious, but she wasn’t an idiot, and that was nothing she wanted anything to do with.
Behind her, she heard a window smash. Up ahead, an engine thrummed. She tucked herself into a shadow and turned back to watch.
Behind her, a motorised milk float came into the street. Ahead of her, two gunshots rang out. There was roaring, and screaming, and then the dark figure soared across the wall and hit the road, hard.
Behind her, the milk float stopped. She glanced back at the driver who was staring at the scene ahead of him. She heard an explosion of sound and whipped her head around to see a huge red monster stepping through the ruined wall beside number eleven.
Behind her, running footsteps. The street was too narrow to turn the milk float around, so the driver had jumped out and bloused.
Ahead, the shadowy figure unsteadily rose to its feet, as what might be a huge demon, or something, she didn’t know what, walked slowly towards it.
Behind her, empty street.
Around her, the cab of a motorised milk float, engine still running. She hadn’t consciously made the decision to get in here, but now she sat in the padded seat, she knew it was the right one.
How did… the lever. She pushed it forward and the milk float started to drive. Ahead of her, the shadowy figure threw something up and caught it, then threw it at the demon. The figure collapsed. The demon took a step forward, then turned to the milk float that was almost upon it. Hildy threw herself out of the cab as the demon raised its hands and brought them down hard on the front of the float. The rear rose into the air. The bottles shot forwards like milk powered rockets and struck the demon’s body, or rained down around it, shattering. Hildy hit the ground and rolled. The now vertical milk float hit the demon and flattened it.
She’d killed a demon. She hadn’t even known they were real.
She sat up and stared at the toppled milk float, the lake of milk, and the dead demon that was… moving, trying to push the milk float off it. Of course it wasn’t dead. Look at the muscles on it! It was nine feet tall, for God’s sake. It was a demon, and she didn’t even know if they could die.
She rose to her feet, unsteadily. Every part of her hurt and she was fairly certain she’d skinned her knee.
“Ouch, ouch, ouch,” she muttered as she moved over to the shadowy figure. Up close, she could see the woman – the figure was definitely female – was lying surrounded by very expensive, good quality silk. She had a white volto mask, but it was cracked like the one the Phantom of the Opera wore, and askiff, and she could see cheek, half a mouth, part of the chin and nose, and one eye. It was the same flukey flap from the Land Registry!
“So, you do make a habit of sliding in and out of windows,” she mused.
The unconscious woman didn’t reply. Behind her, metal groaned as the demon tried to free itself. Beyond the demon, a black car was parked by the side of the road.
She couldn’t let her story die.
She grabbed the woman by the armpits and started dragging her towards the car. The demon glared at them as they passed by out of reach.
That had been last night. Today, she was jumping at every loud noise, wondering how her paper could publish a story about a crashed milk float and ignore the demon trapped under it, making cups of noodle juice and forgetting to drink them, letting them go cold in her hands.
She had the scoop, she just had no idea what was going on or how to write it.
With a groan, she sat her cup down and headed out. She needed air, she needed to think.
She needed a way to write this that her editors would accept. They could be such cancelled stamps about some things.
Previous Chapter: Chapter Sixteen
Next Chapter: Chapter Eighteen
Editor’s Note
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
From: The London Eye Editorial Board
Subject: Language
Date: June 14, 1922
Confused? You might need The Hildy Johnson Flapper Slang Dictionary. It explains all the flapper slang in this, and other, chapters.
Author’s Note
There’s a context chat on the queerguide today. It’s calling some of you out 😛
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