Page 174 of Dead Vengeance

“Appropriate actions?” Archer asks, dubiousness thick in his voice.

“With the mirror?” I attempt to clarify.

“That’s right,” Gerald says, bushy eyebrows high, giving the appearance of genuine openness. “Believe me when I tell you, I had no idea what that thing was. A friend asked me to hold on to it for him, and had I known…” He blows out a long tobacco-scented breath, shaking his head. “Can’t be too careful who you trust these days, can you?”

“What appropriate actions?” asks Archer, deadpan, cutting into his explanation.

“Well, I got rid of it, didn’t I?”

“What did you do?” I pursue.

But, “Bullshit, you did,” says Archer.

Gerald’s eyes grow large. He pulls back as if Archer’s offended him, which, to be fair, I also hadn’t quite expected that tone from Archer, even if he’s right to use it.

“I did too get rid of it.” He pats hands over the large pockets of his corduroy coat. “Search me if you like.” Then he holds out yellow-stained fingers, stretched wide. “Search the office if you want.” Those widely stretched fingers ball up until only the pointers stretch out, and he presses them down on the desk, leaning towards Archer. “But I won’t have you slandering me or ExorSquad. You can’t prove nothing.”

Archer laughs grimly. “That’s what you’re worried about? Not the destruction you’ve caused, but just how quickly I can run your business into the ground?”

“Now what would you want to do that for?” Gerald asks, taking up a cigarette from the packet on the table, waggling it between two fingers. “Maybe I ain’t always made the right choices. Maybe I do keep company with some guys I shouldn’t. But I’ll tell you what.” He lights the cigarette, then waves the lit end at me. “I see it as my solemn and certified duty to lift up troubled youngsters such as Liam here.”

“Troubled?” I whisper.

As if confirming, Gerald explains, “When he came to me, he was just a pauper off the street. A good for nothing, no-hope, dead-end nobody. Now look at him!” I do look down at myself, wondering how very different I am before I remember I’m wearing Archer’s much nicer clothes. “Gave that boy five hundred pounds just in bonuses, I did. And look at him now!”

Archer seems to have a little coughing fit, but I barely notice, because that’s right. Gerald did do that. That was so nice of him.

Guilt assails me, sitting here in his office where one week ago I didn’t think I’d ever be given an opportunity like this again. Look at me now. If he hadn’t given me that job, taken a chance on me, I wouldn’t have Archer. I wouldn’t have Jem. Marsden would never have been caught, his reign of evil would continue, poor Simon and Fabian/Ferdinand would be the same pair of long-lost, ill-fated lovers, living the same waking nightmare for all eternity, and my poor mum…

All of this, every last bit, is because Gerald took a chance on me.

“I’m sorry,” I practically shout at him. “Gerald, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to imply anything.”

Archer’s head snaps across to me in reprimand, but he can’t possibly see things with the same clear perspective I do.

Gerald, on the other hand, nods sympathetically. “That’s all right, lad. You weren’t to know.”

“To know what?” Archer snaps. “What did you do with the mirror?”

“Well…” He pauses for so long that I do slightly wonder if he’s trying to make up an excuse. Then I feel twice as bad when he provides the perfectly logical explanation. “I sent it to the museum.”

“The museum!” Archer cries.

“Not the British Museum?” I rasp.

“Lord, no!” Gerald spits. “What kind of a monster do you think I am?” He rolls his eyes, and I get another sharp twang of guilt. “Bah, of course not. But I thought to myself,” he taps his cigarette ash into the overfull coffin ashtray on the desk, “if I give it over to those cops who want it, that’s exactly where it’ll end up. And we can’t have that, can we? Cultural appropriation and all that sort of stuff.”

“I don’t think that’s quite the same thing,” Archer tries.

But Gerald speaks on. “So I sent it over to Mexico.”

The word seems to still time, and Archer and I sit here, staring, trying to process.

“That’s right. Mexico!” says Gerald. “I thought they’d want their mirror back.”

“You sent it to a museum in Mexico?” Archer asks, far more incredulously than I think is necessary.

So I correct course with, “Aw, Gerald, that was such a beautiful thing to do.” And truly, it warms my whole heart that he thought of it. “That mirror would have been worth a fortune on the black market, I bet. That was so good of you.”