Where Cowards Tread (Ravenwood Mysteries #7) by Sabrina Flynn

Author:Sabrina Flynn [Flynn, Sabrina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sabrina Flynn

22

Middleman

San Francisco was reaching for the sky, and an army of human ants were climbing up its scaffolding. One laborer, somewhere between boy and man, had a board on his shoulders with a curve cut out for his neck. Some forty bricks lay stacked on the board as he carried them across the yard.

Riot flicked his gaze over the laborer noting calluses, rough hands, the way his neck bent slightly forward, and the musculature of a sixteen-year-old who carried stacks of bricks all day. A scarf was tied around the laborer’s neck to prevent chaffing, and a cap was pulled low against the light. Dark circles ran under his eyes. He walked up to the scaffolding where another laborer began plucking the bricks off the tray and tossing them upwards to the next tier. One brick after another, trusting that his fellow worker would catch each missile.

When the tray was emptied the boy walked back towards a waiting wagon. Riot intercepted him there.

“Scottie Barnes?”

The boy eyed Riot sideways. “I’m busy.”

“I can see that. And exhausted, by the look of you.”

“Get off.”

The boy turned, the tray snug around his neck, as a man in the wagon began loading more bricks onto the board. With every tier, the boy winced.

“I’m a persistent fellow. I think you’ll want to talk to me alone.”

“You a copper?”

“I’m a detective.”

The man in the wagon faltered.

Riot glanced up at him. “You’re not in trouble. Neither is your brickyard.”

The man kept stacking.

“I don’t have to talk to you,” the boy said.

“No, but I’ve a mind to keep you company the rest of the day if you don’t.”

“And what if I drop this right here, and dirty those fancy duds of yours?”

“Considering the bruises you earned from your fight last night, I’d say that would be a bad idea.”

The boy glared. “What do you want?”

Riot held up a silver dollar. “Information.”

Silver glinted in the mist. The boy took over one more load of bricks, then announced he was due a break. Riot stood by as Scottie drank from a canteen. Then he held out his hand.

“After I get my information.”

“I can only stall so long before the foreman starts screaming.”

“Last night, a fight started and you were part of a group that was arrested for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct.”

“What of it? Nothing wrong with it.”

“Someone hired you and your friends to start a ruckus.”

Scottie shrugged massive shoulders. “He paid our fines, too.”

“Who hired you?”

“The fellow paid for our silence.”

Riot wove the coin between his fingers. The boy watched, mesmerized. “Will he know who talked out of a group of twenty?”

Scottie spat on the ground, and took off his cap, running a hand through his hair. “I ain’t no rat.”

Riot turned his hand over. A second coin appeared, the two silver dollars sitting in the palm of his hand.

The boy reached for the coins, but Riot closed his hand.

“We were roaming the Barbary Coast well into the bottle, and some fella comes up and says he’ll pay us to start a fight.

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