Read Randall #03 - Sherwood Ltd. for Free Online Page B

taken you hostage. He’d been threatening to abscond with my chair if we didn’t tell him where Peter was, so I was lying low.”
    “I coulda taken him in half a minute, knife or no knife,” said a big man with a scarred face and an accent even less comprehensible than the rest.
    “And killed the poor old sod,” Peter said. “We don’t need corpses bleeding all over our canteen floor, thank you very much.”
    Another homicidal lunatic. And here I was, cheerfully joining him for beer. Maybe I’d completely lost my own mind and I was back in Manhattan, hallucinating.
    The pierced man offered a hand.
    “I’m Tom Mowbray—the art department. You’d better like your cover art, because I’ve got no time for alterations…”
    Further conversation was thwarted by a burst of noise from a small stage at the end of the pub. An M.C. with hair slicked into a ratty pony tail announced in a Cockney accent that music was about to commence. Karaoke. I might have preferred Barnacle Bill.
    I was grateful for the arrival of the beer. It was indeed room temperature—not a problem since the chilly room was about the temperature of American beer. I took a sip and found it pretty yummy. Peter ordered meat pies for both of us.
    Brenda was a worn-looking woman in her fifties, with quantities of dyed hair and a figure that must have been spectacular before gravity took its toll. She didn’t look particularly pleased to see Peter.
    “So are you going to settle up the account now?”
    “What account? We’re just getting started,” said Peter.
    “For the Yank. Three week’s lodging and meals.” She handed him a sheet of paper scribbled with numbers. “I’d prefer cash, if you don’t mind.”
    “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Brenda me love.” Peter gave her a wink. “I’ll have the money for you when he checks out.” He looked around the crowded pub. “Where is the illustrious Mr. Trask, by the way? I want him to meet Miss Randall here.”
    “Gone,” Brenda said with a sniff. “Without so much as a wave goodbye. I cooked his bloody breakfast and carried it up to his room this morning, but he’d cleared off in the night. I had to charge you for the full English, by the way. He’s got to have them egg substitutes. Cost me three times as much as proper eggs.”
    Peter’s face distorted as he slammed the table in fury. “Bugger! You lot know anything about this?” He surveyed the table with a suspicious eye. “Trask never signed that bollocksy new contract. We’re screwed, mates. Bloody screwed.”
    There it was—that feral thing I saw in Peter the night we met.
    I tensed. So did everybody else.
    Or maybe that was because an emaciated young woman with maroon hair had joined the MC to sing something that had been awful when the Captain and Tennille sang it in the nineteen-seventies.
    The singers who followed were worse, but the meat pie was flaky and filling, and eventually the beer dulled my anxiety. But it also made me sleepy. When Liam got up to sing, I could hardly keep my head up, although he did a rousing rendition of the Animals’ 1960s anthem, “We Gotta Get Outta This Place.” By the last chorus, the entire pub was singing along.
    The patrons were still applauding Liam when a taxi driver appeared and the Professor took his leave.
    “Nice to meet you, Miss Randall,” he said over his shoulder as he wheeled himself toward the door. “Unlike this lot. I have a home to go to.”
    “Our American guest looks knackered,” Liam said as he resumed his seat. He gave me a smile. “Planning to stay upstairs?”
    I looked to Peter for a cue. He shrugged, obviously still upset about Mr. Trask’s departure.
    “They have a vacancy, as you heard.” He picked up Brenda’s bill. “Your compatriot thinks Sherwood is a forest of money trees.” He stuffed the bill in a pocket. “So what do you say? Upstairs? Or our humble accommodations at the Maidenette Building? ”
    Before I could speak, the M.C. came to