LITMIR.BIZ

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cowboys in town to “see the elephant” before going home flat broke, if the cardsharps had their way. They usually did. Hell, Will and Finck were actually putting out a catalog of devices for the professional gambler who didn’t mind using a little sleight of hand to ensure that he won. Yup, cheating was an industry, he thought, somewhat amused.

      A man dressed in denim pants and a buckskin shirt edged past on his way to the bar, bumping into Frank with a thud, then glaring at Frank as though he were the one doing the bumping.

      “Sorry,” Frank muttered.

      “Yeah,” the man growled, and blessedly continued on his way.

      Frank released the breath he’d been holding. He felt as out of place as a rabbit at a wolf convention. But he was here now, and he had business, so he leaned back in his chair and tried to look calm and composed.

      The chair wobbled pretty much like Frank’s confidence. One of the back legs was shorter than the others, so he leaned forward again, forearms on the edge of the table. His finely tailored gray suit was in sharp contrast to the stained and gouged surface of the square table.

      He was waiting for the Riggs brothers, who were late. Where were they? All he wanted was to say his say and get the hell out of here. This was not his sort of place, after all. Frank had finer tastes. He preferred saloons like the one on Montgomery Street—slate billiard tables, gilt-framed paintings and glittering chandeliers.

      If it weren’t for his job, he wouldn’t spend five seconds in a place like this.

      Music started up from the out-of-tune piano. An argument broke out at the table next to him. A man shouting at another about fixed dice in a game of high-low-jack. The two lunged for each other, and Frank shrank back against the wall, praying he wouldn’t get involved, or hurt.

      The bartender scrambled over the bar, wielding an ax handle, and effectively and efficiently ended the dispute with a resounding blow across the shoulders of one man. Frank winced as the man sagged to the floor.

      “I ain’t puttin’ up with no fightin’ in here,” he snarled, the saloon suddenly quiet. He waved the ax handle in the air to punctuate his order. Grabbing the unconscious man by the shirt collar, he dragged him toward the door. His boot heels left trails on the filthy floor. For the span of two heartbeats, no one moved. Then, as if nothing had happened, everyone went back to doing what they had been before.

      Heart pounding, Frank slid back into his wobbly chair. If the Riggs brothers didn’t show up soon, he was leaving. Instinctively he patted the envelope that was making a small bulge in his jacket pocket. Damn. He couldn’t leave.

      But, hell, he was a lawyer, not some street ruffian. Oh, sure, there were some who’d put his profession close to a criminal’s, but they’d be wrong, emphatically wrong.

      Lawyers were hired by someone to do a job that that same someone didn’t want to do, or couldn’t do themselves. And that was exactly what Frank was doing. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t exactly legal, or ethical, but it paid well, very well, and no one got hurt. Frank had his code, too. It was simple. In business, everything was fair as long as no one got hurt—physically hurt, that is. Financially, well, that was another story.

      Frank nodded to himself, pleased with his code of ethics. Across the saloon, a ruddy-faced man in a lopsided top hat kept pounding out music on the badly tuned piano. One of the saloon girls, dressed in nothing but white pantaloons, black stockings and a bright yellow corset, decided to sing along. The sound was reminiscent of fingernails on a chalkboard, and made his skin prickle and his ears ache.

      He craned his neck, searching the room. God, where were they? He scanned the crowd again and flinched as the singer hit a particularly painful note that didn’t exist on any known musical scale.

      It was reflex that made him pour a glass of whiskey from the bottle he’d ordered when he came in. Good sense stopped him from drinking it. The liquid was the color of a polluted stream and smelled like the contents of a chamber pot. He grimaced.

      He’d take Irish whiskey any day. Still, he toyed with the glass, hoping he looked at home. Where the hell were the Riggses? Five minutes. He’d give them five minutes, and boss or no boss, he’d—

      “Evenin’,” a male voice said, and Frank jumped at the sound, it was so close.

      “We scare you?” Bill Riggs chuckled as he and his brother Jack circled around each side of him in a flanking maneuver. They dragged up chairs opposite him and sat down.

      “You’re late,” Frank told them, feeling more than a little intimidated by the two hard-looking men.

      “Sorry. I was—” Bill glanced at his brother, then back to Frank “—detained.” He lounged back. “Upstairs.”

      Frank grimaced. “Take care of that stuff on your own time. Did you finish the job I hired you to do?”

      “Sure.” Bill smoothed the lapel of his rumpled brown suit. His white shirt was open at the neck and had no collar.

      Jack leaned forward, his lean face grim, his blue eyes hard as winter. “You got the money?”

      With a furtive glance at the nearest table, Frank discreetly slipped the envelope from his pocket and placed it squarely in front of him, his fingers resting lightly on the edges.

      “This is half of the money. You get the rest after the exchange is made.”

      He pushed the envelope toward them. The white paper seemed to gleam against the dark pine table.

      Bill pried the envelope partway open and ran his thumb across the stack of greenbacks before carefully slipping it in his jacket pocket. He looked up with a broken-toothed grin. “We’re right pleased to do business with you, Mr. Handley.” Elbows on the edge of the table, he looked at Frank Handley with a ferret-eyed gaze. “Just how’d you choose us for this job, anyway?”

      Frank toyed with the full shot glass in front of him. Whiskey spilled over the top onto his fingers, making them sticky. “I needed someone who wasn’t...squeamish about such things, and you boys—” he looked first at one, then at the other “—you have that reputation.”

      This time both men grinned, as though they’d just been congratulated for perfect attendance at Sunday school, instead of for being immoral thieves and worse.

      “Nice to know a man’s reputation is worth somethin’ these days,” Jack told him, then elbowed his grinning brother. “We’re always lookin’ for a little work...of one kind or another.”

      Yeah, Frank thought, he knew all about the brothers and their reputation. He’d asked around for someone who’d ask no questions and whose scruples declined in direct proportion to the amount of money paid. Everyone he’d talked with had mentioned the brothers, and they’d been right.

      At the mention of kidnapping, they hadn’t blinked an eye, just asked when and how much.

      “So...” Jack reached across to help himself to the untouched glass of whiskey. Tossing back the brown liquid in one gulp, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “What next? You want us to get rid of the kid? ‘Cause that would be easier, and—”

      “No!” Frank quickly glanced around to see if anyone else had heard his sudden outburst.

      “No,” he repeated, more softly, but just as firmly. He drew the line at murder. “No harm is to come to the boy. He’ll be exchanged for the money tomorrow night.”

      “Why not tonight?”

      “Because we want to give the mother a chance to worry a little. That way, she’ll have to—” Frank broke off, then started again. “Just make the exchange tomorrow night. Nine o’clock, in the alley on Kearney, behind the So Different. I’ll make arrangements for the ransom note to be delivered.”

      The brothers eyes him intently, and Frank could practically see them calculating, trying to figure how to make more out of this than he’d allowed for.

      “And

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