Each of the three had a whisky in hand from the giant bottle by the desk, and as one made a move to put his glass down — he must have been slow not to slew it in one of our faces — Bill, knowing well enough how to gain tactical momentum, as he might have said, but not finding the time, since he seemed to act outside it he was so quick, sent a lightning kick at his bollocks that promised some difficulty in inspecting the area for a fortnight.
Moggerhanger reached for the telephone. My hand crashed down. “Drop it.”
He took a swipe at me, but his old force wasn’t there. In any case he missed. Unable to avoid the strongest push I could give, he went arse backwards onto the floor. Everything happening in atomic time seconds, I turned to the two who had set onto Bill.
I found it unbelievable that Moggerhanger had been so barmy as to lay such a trap, till realising that his punishment battalion had been meant for me alone, which thought drove me into such anger that my geyser of inherited Irish fury helped me to pull one of the men from Bill, and I damaged my knuckles so much against his face that his collision with the glass whisky container shook its base.
I had felt resentment against that monumental bowser of fiery piss-coloured booze since first seeing it, a rage that even now I can’t explain. The pet adornment of Moggerhanger’s inner sanctum, it was his precious memento placed there to cow all callers, perhaps installed after some great and crooked job in his blustering days of middle life, or maybe taken from his worst enemy who had at the time looked on Moggerhanger as his best friend. Perhaps he had won it in a game with marked cards, and liked to be reminded of the occasion.
The quantity of alcohol would have kept a party going for the best part of a month, since the glass was nearly full, Moggerhanger always sparing of its contents, and only allowing special guests a sample of its aroma. From anywhere in the room it was hard not to keep it in view, which was its main value for him, because in that case you were not staring at him, which gave the advantage of weighing you up while you were so enthralled. I assumed it to be his most precious artefact, a weapon of sorts, since that brew, however fiery, was as mellow as he could ever get, as well as self-contained and large bodied, a sign of hospitality so false that you would certainly be in trouble if he allowed you too much of it.
While Moggerhanger was behind his desk regretting, I hoped, what a fracas he’d set off, Bill and I were doing our best not to get into bear hugs with our well-bodied antagonists, which involved not unduly caring for the furniture and fittings round about. As the fight went on, from the corner of my half-swollen eyes, I noted the Ming vase in more pieces than I had been able to count in school at five. The reproductions of the Nightwatch and the Mona Lisa slid and ripped under our feet, while a bust of Julius Caesar proved more hollow than Moggerhanger had thought.
He had been careful at least to give Alice Whipplegate a day off, while Lady Moggerhanger was probably shopping at Harrod’s, and daughter Polly had gone only too willingly on another adulterous fling in Nice, otherwise they would have been screaming in the doorway at the wrecking of Moggerhanger’s study, which work even his three hired numbskulls seemed to be tackling with malicious gusto.
Bill, though capable, didn’t relish too long a bout of fisticuffs. “The give and take of blows was never one of my pleasures.” I recalled his axion in the flash of a second, while fighting for my life against a skilful and indefatigable opponent — “It’s wasteful of blood and energy, and too slow for coming to a decision.”
He saw his chance, on glimpsing Moggerhanger behind the desk take a revolver from the drawer, meaning I suppose to end a scene which he saw as becoming more distressful by the minute, as well as less certain of outcome.
The gun flew into the air, an explosion that startled the rest of us into statuary, though not for long. The bullet must have gone as close to Moggerhanger as would scorch the hair on the back of his beefy hand, at which crackshot Bill, unable to put the gun away now that it was out, levelled it at our assailants. He was gasping, as we all were. “One move, and you’re very seriously injured.” I was encouraged by this to wield my shooter, and give the expected back up.
“Tactical retreat, Michael,” Bill shouted. “Now move!”
Firing so rapidly I thought he had a machine gun, but it was his idea of covering fire. The men fell to the floor, Moggerhanger clutching his wrist. “Don’t be a fool, Michael!”
I had always hated to hear my first name from his lips, and now he used it once too often. What followed came of the one vicious thought I’d never so far had the opportunity to act on. Why I did what I did was still hard to say, but I had no regrets. One of Bill’s rounds hit the giant whisky flask, hair cracks around the wall of a dam, a curve of pure spirit arching from the hole into the mouth of a gentleman of the Nightwatch on the carpet. It’s hard to know what anyone would have expected me to do, apart from what I did. If ever a course of action was irresistible that was, and doubly so when Moggerhanger’s face turned demented on guessing what was in my mind. “No, don’t. Not that!”
I fired once, twice, three times for fair measure, and then some more at different points of the glass, till the holes joined up and the whole container opened from top to bottom, sending innumerable gallons of whisky in a tidal wave to the four walls.
Bill guarded the door till both of us were through, along the corridor and into the kitchen where, with his usual presence of mind in even the most perilous situation, he snatched a now cool and fully decorated bun, and with a full mouth, gave Mrs Blemish a kiss on the way out. Jock, walking aimlessly about the courtyard, ran to open the gate on seeing our armaments.
Bloody-faced Moggerhanger raved from the kitchen door, his Bermondsey hard cases pushing by to get at us. Bill slipped in another clip, and with a few more shots stopped them coming into the open, though I noticed he aimed carefully in case Mrs Blemish was anywhere in the line of fire.
My gun went click on pressing the trigger to join in, but the elation at having spent the best part of a magazine on Moggerhanger’s prize piss bottle stopped any regret, since back up at the moment was hardly necessary, given Bill’s amazing know-how and aggression. My only thought was: “He’ll be throwing a hand grenade next, like in the movies.”
Moggerhanger must have picked up his large heavy-duty revolver, for the racket of ricocheting shots echoed like fireworks on Bonfire Night, sizzling so close I swayed left and right like a metronome, as if that would stop one from hitting me.
Then I was amazed and stupefied when Bill did take a hand grenade from his pocket, pulled out the pin so that everyone in the doorway could see, and professionally hurled it, as the gate fully opened behind us.
That the missile didn’t explode was no accident. As he told me later, it was a replica taken from the component parts of a Johnny-Seven toy out of Hamley’s window. “But how would anybody know?”
Moggerhanger and his pals ran so fast that no pursuit was considered, because by the time they realised it wasn’t going to blow their feet off they could hardly be sure that the next one wouldn’t.
When we were outside Bill insisted that running down the street was futile. “We’re doing a hundred and twenty paces to the minute, so needn’t hurry, unless it’s a matter of life and death.”
We were so adept at jinking it would have taken more than one pursuer to find us. Bill followed his rule of choosing the second turn off instead of the first. “Another thing, never take the first left when you are on foot, and always the second to the right. Let’s cross.”