Lord Bobbins and the Romanian Ruckus (A TeslaCon Novel Book 1) Read online

  Lord Bobbins

  and the

  Romanian Ruckus

  A TeslaCon™ Novel

  Sean Patrick Little

  Spilled Inc. Press

  Sun Prairie, Wisconsin

  © 2017

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, character, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relationship to anyone, living or dead, bearing the same name or names. All incidents are pure invention from the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. …Except for the guy who shows up in Chapter Eight—he actually lived, but this is a fictional version of him, done in loving tribute.

  All rights reserved.

  Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying or recording, or in any information or retrieval system, is forbidden without the prior written permission of both the publisher and copyright owner of this book.

  (What that fancy paragraph above said was: Please don’t pirate this book. The author barely makes any money off it as it is, and he has a child going to college soon. Support the creative art you enjoy. Thank you for being considerate.)

  Lord Hastings Robert Bobbins III and TeslaCon are copyrights of Eric Jon Larson, used with permission.

  All other characters are copyright Sean Patrick Little.

  Copyright 2017 Sean Patrick Little

  Published by Spilled Inc. Press

  Sun Prairie, Wisconsin

  [email protected]

  Twitter: @spilledincpress

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-387-18761-4

  ISBN-10:

  Cover Design: Bryan Arendt, ©2017

  November 2017

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  Lord Bobbins

  and the

  Romanian Ruckus

  A TeslaCon Novel

  For Eric

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peek

  About TeslaCon™

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Other Books

  Publisher’s Note

  “I don’t believe in anything until I meet it face-to-face…and even then it might take me a while. Especially if it is poorly dressed.”

  —Lord H.R. Bobbins III

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Fighter

  Nicodemus Clarke didn’t like barn fights. Barns smelled. They were dirty. They were dusty, and the dust irritated his nose and made his eyes itch. Given the choice between a bare-knuckled brawl in a barn and just about anyplace else on earth, Clarke would take Option B most of the time. Unfortunately, one does not often get to choose the time and place that one will be fighting for one’s life, and so a barn fight it would have to be.

  “I don’t suppose anyone wants to settle this like gentlemen and just discuss our differences, do they?” Clarke backed away from the mob while he rolled up his sleeves.

  There were four of them approaching him slowly. Not great odds, but Clarke had been in worse situations. Two of them were average blokes, roughly Clarke’s size. Of those two, one sported a scruffy blond beard, and the other wore a battered Union kepi faded by time, wear, and weather. Both of those men looked like they knew how to fight. On the far left was a round-bellied giant of a man, bald as a skipping rock and missing his two front teeth, presumably from a previous scrape. The bruises and cuts on his knuckles proved he knew how to fight. He had fists the size of baked hams and arms that hung like sides of beef. Clarke worried about taking him on with three others to deal with; a man like that would be tough enough alone. The fourth guy, to Clarke’s right, was a scrawny, rat-faced little tough, the type of guy who bit and scratched during a fight. Clarke hated that type of guy. Fights were bad enough, but they became infinitely worse when there was no established decorum.

  “Marquess of Queensbury rules, anyone?”

  Union Kepi spat a thick glob of tobacco on the ground. “You talk all the time, ‘Demus. Time for talk is over. Time for fightin’ now.”

  Only moments before, the five of them had been engaged in a lively bit of sport in the tack room of a livery stables. Five-card draw, deuces wild. Clarke had been winning handily—the four of them were all horrible card players—when Rat-Face accused him of cheating. Clarke, of course, refused to take such an insult to his honor lightly and invited Rat-Face to step outside. The other three had come as a matter of principle and that principle no longer favored Clarke.

  “I would really much rather not,” said Clarke. “Too often we are quick to engage with fists when words would be so much more pleasant.”

  “I knows a cheat when I sees a cheat,” Rat-Face spat. “Ain’t nobody win that much. You’re a cheat, ‘Demus.”

  Clarke feigned indignation. “I have never cheated in my life, good sir. I don’t need to cheat when you make mistakes like inhaling sharply through your nose when you get a good card.”

  “I don’t do that,” said Rat-Face.

  “No, you don’t,” agreed Clarke. “You swish your tobacco from one cheek to the other with your tongue. He inhales.” Clarke pointed at Blond Beard.

  “Give me my money back,” Blond Beard hissed.

  “Fair’s fair, good man. You lost. Take it as a lesson and better yourself. I can give lessons, if you’d like. It’ll cost you, though.”

  Clarke took another step backward and felt the heel of his boot bang against a wooden wall. There was no more retreating.

  Clarke sighed. “I suppose we’re going to have to do this the hard way, right?”

  “Four of us, one of you. I think you’re the one who’s taking the hard way. Just give us our money back. It don’t gotta be like this.” said Rat-Face. “You ain’t gotta take a beatin’ today, ‘Demus.”

  The fingers on Clarke’s right hand brushed against the thick wad of bills in his front pocket. He needed that money. That money would get him on a train heading west. That money would get him the hell out of Philadelphia. Maybe even get him to Missouri or Wisconsin, maybe get him a chance to start over as someone other than Nicodemus Clarke. “I can’t do that. Fair’s fair. If I’d cheated, I’d give it back. I didn’t, so I’ve got a mind to keep it.”

  Rat-Face reached into the front pocket of his greasy trousers and pulled out a thin switchblade knife. With a practiced snap of his wrist, the blade sprang from the sheath and glittered in the half-light of the barn.

  “Oh, now that’s just not right,” sighed Clarke. “I’m prepared to fight you with fists, and suddenly you’re going knives. If I’d known this was going to be a knife-fight, I would have brought a knife.”

  Before Rat-Face could respond, Clarke struck at him like a viper. One hand grabbed Rat-Face’s wrist and jerked him forward while the o
ther hand struck the greasy little man’s elbow with a flat palm. There was a sickening pop and Rat-Face howled. When Clarke dropped the man’s wrist, his forearm flopped limply from the elbow joint and the knife fell harmlessly to the ground.

  Then there was an explosion of activity. The Giant bum-rushed Clarke catching him up in a bear hug. Clarke’s arms were trapped at his sides, so he slammed his head forward and tried to break the Giant’s nose. The Giant, no stranger to fights, anticipated that tactic and Clark ended up banging his chin on the top of the man’s glossy dome. Clarke slammed against the barn wall so hard that all the air in his chest blew out in a singular heave, and then he was dumped unceremoniously on the floor.

  Union Kepi was right there and caught Clarke in the ribs with a heavy boot. The joke was on him, though—Clarke had no air left to expel. He flopped like a trout and sucked in wind for all he was worth making a horrible groaning/wheezing noise while doing it. Blond Beard followed with a kick of his own for good measure.

  Clarke rolled to his hands and knees. “That’s fair,” he choked out. “Everyone got their shot in, and we can call it a day.”

  “You broke my damn arm!” Rat-Face was still howling, cradling the maimed limb.

  “Dislocated. Not broke,” said Clarke. “If I wanted it broke, I’d have broke it.”

  “It don’t work!” Rat-Face couldn’t flex his fingers or move his wrist.

  “Give us the money, ‘Demus,” said Union Kepi. “It don’t have to get worse than it is.”

  “You’re attacking me because I beat you in cards. It shouldn’t have gotten this bad to start. Ain’t none of you boys heard of losing gracefully?”

  “I lose gracefully when I get beat fair,” said Blond Beard. “Cough up the paper.” Blond Beard straddled Clarke and began to feel for the wad of cash. Clarke grabbed Blondie’s leg and rolled into it, toppling him. Clarke twisted the man’s ankle until there was a loud and violent pop. Blond Beard’s foot dangled limply at the end of his leg; he howled like a mountain cur. Before Giant and Union Kepi could react, Clarke spun on his back and sent simultaneous kicks directly into a knee of each man. This buckled both of them.

  Clarke was on his feet in an instant. A knee square to Union Kepi’s chin rocked him backward splaying him spread-eagle. The Giant was still standing, but Clarke caught the big man’s arm and twisted it behind his back in a chicken wing. The Giant began to beg for mercy. Clarke got his feet under him and pushed the Giant’s arm higher. The Giant bent over, desperate to release the pressure. Clarke put a kick in the back of the big man’s good knee and dropped him heavily to the floor. With a quick twist and wrench, the Giant’s arm popped out of its socket. The Giant threw his head back and began to low like a wounded water buffalo.

  Clarke stood straight and brushed himself off with his hands. Clouds of dust rolled from his clothes. He surveyed the damage: One man unconscious, three men with dislocated limbs. Dislocations hurt like a bear, but they would heal far faster than a break if they were put back in place by a doctor with half a brain. It was a kindness what Clarke had done to them. They would hurt, but they would be back to roughing up urchins for pocket change soon enough. “Thanks for the game, fellas. Work on your poker faces, won’t you?”

  Clarke unrolled his sleeves and left them to hang loose. He picked up his gray duster where he’d cast it into a pile of hair. He beat the loose bits of hay that clung to the oil-treated canvas, and then slipped his arms into the coat. As he did, a pair of black of deuces fell from the sleeve and fluttered to the floor in front of Rat-Face. His weasel snout crinkled in rage. “I tol’ you that sumbitch was cheatin’ us!”

  Clarke always knew when it was time for him to leave. This was that time. He shoved the large barn door open just far enough to slip out into the fading daylight. The side street where the livery stable was located was just off a main thoroughfare. The busy street was lined with horse-drawn hackneys competing for fares with Steamcabs and trollies. Merchants stood outside their shops announcing their deals in the hopes of enticing potential buyers. Paperboys hawked broadsheets by waving them above their head. People crowded the sidewalks and moved as a mass. It was simple enough for Clarke to slip into the throng, put his head down, and blend in with everyone else, just another face in the crowd.

  He had barely walked half a block before the hair on the back of his neck went to tingling. Something was wrong. Without moving his head, he scanned to his left and right. He listened hard to block out the ambient noise and locate something amiss. He was being followed, he knew that much. He’d grown a sixth sense about such things over the years. He just knew when someone was after him. Who was following him and why—those were the things he didn’t know.

  Clarke stepped into the next shop, a basic, no frills butcher’s shop, as if he was just another customer looking for something to bring home for dinner. The shop was clean, but had a coppery smell of meat and blood in the air. A rotund man with mutton-chop sideburns welcomed him. “Good evening, good sir! What can I interest you in today?”

  “Got a back door? A delivery door?”

  The butcher’s face twisted into a scowl. “Of course. Through the back. But, you can’t go through there.”

  “I need to,” said Clarke. He pulled dollar bill from the wad in his pocket and tossed it onto the counter. “For your trouble.”

  The dollar bill disappeared from the counter and the butcher looked through the broad front window to the street. “I see nothing,” he mumbled.

  Clarke ducked behind the counter and ran through the kitchen into an alley cluttered with boxes and debris from the shops. He looked right and left, both appealing options, but both were still going to keep him on the street where whomever was following him might find him again. Clarke looked to the fire escapes. He maneuvered an empty oak barrel under the raised wrought-iron ladder and climbed it to reach the bottom rung. Swinging himself back and forth for leverage, he caught the next rung, and then the next, until he could get a foot into the lowest rung. Then, he propelled himself to the rooftops with all due haste.

  The rooftops were flat, with the tall, square false-fronts that extended half a story higher than the buildings themselves shielding him from the street. Clarke ran to the end of the block and peered around the edge of the facade just enough to see the street below. The mass of people moved north and south like ants, but two men, two rather large men, were disrupting the flow of traffic. People had to swirl around them like water moving past saplings. Clarke didn’t recognize either man. They were dressed similarly, black suits, black greatcoats, and black bowler hats. They were equally large, both standing taller than most men in the crowd, both thick in the shoulders. Who do they work for? Clarke wondered. They were certainly hired goons. Clarke swiveled back to the alley and saw a third black-suited goon coming out the back door of the butchery. The goon was clutching a nasty-looking iron sap.

  Clarke felt a headache coming on. He could not catch a break. He started to mentally list all the people to whom he might owe money. Perhaps it was a former lover’s new flame? Or perhaps he accidentally cuckolded some jealous husband? There were too many women to keep proper track of such things. Clarke was trapped on the roof. There were only the fire escapes to get him to the ground, short of taking a four or five story leap. The goons hadn’t noticed he was up there, but there was only a matter of time before one of them realized that the roof was the likeliest place for a man on the run.

  Clarke peered around the edge of the false front again. There wasn’t even a passing wagon full of cotton or something equally soft where he might chance a leap. Clarke sank to his haunches in a shadow at the corner of the rooftop. He heard shouting, and the faint sound of the fire escape ladder being dragged down forcefully. The goons were smarter than they looked.

  Clarke crept to the edge of the roof and chanced a glance over the side. They were large men, clearly trained fighters. They were hired muscle used to giving beatings. Unlike the four idiots he’d given a proper beat
ing in the barn, these guys wouldn’t be all fists and stupidity. They would attack as a unit; they would corner him and prevent him from doing anything clever. Clarke was getting the sinking feeling in his gut that came with the anticipation of a beating he could do nothing to prevent. All in all, it had shaped up to be a pretty lackluster day for Nicodemus Clarke.

  The first goon’s face peered over the edge of the roof minutes later. “He’s here.”

  Clarke checked over the edge of the roof again. It would be too far to fall. He could get out of some scrapes when necessary, but a four story leap was too far for him. The only other option was a leap across the alley to the roofs on the opposite side. That was a good sixteen feet, maybe eighteen. If the other roofs were a story lower, Clarke reckoned he probably could have made it, but given the height of the buildings was even, he figured he’d be lucky to land with his arms on the ledge, and if he wasn’t able to get a grip, he would still fall four stories. He contemplated a wild leap toward one of the covered Steamcabs wondering if the covered leather roof would be enough to break his fall without breaking him. In the back of his mind, Clarke had a small voice telling him he could make it. He tried to ignore that voice. Twenty years ago, maybe he would have taken it seriously and tried, but not now. He was too cognizant of his age and the toll the years and hard living had taken on him.

  The three goons were at the far end of the roofs now. They spread out in a line and walked toward him, each holding a sap that would break bones or knock a man unconscious. Clarke looked at his options: If he let them subdue him without a fight, he reasoned that they’d probably knock him out. Chances were if they were hired goons, they’d cart him somewhere someone wanted to do something worse to him. If he fought and they subdued him, he’d probably have broken fingers, a bruised face, and a broken nose to cause him pain until whoever wanted him could do worse to him. If he jumped he’d probably die, or at the very least break his legs, wither in a hospital, and then die of infection. Not the greatest list of options that had ever been in front of him.