Susan Amarillas - Scanlin's Law

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 just how much money is the woman putting up for her brat?”

Frank frowned. “Don’t get any ideas.” His fingers trembled slightly, and he carefully hid them under the table. “Just do the job.”

“Sure. Sure.”

“I’ll be across the street, at the Bella Union. Bring me the bag, and you’ll be paid the balance owed you.”

“Yeah. Yeah,” said Bill, with a casual wave of his grimy hand. “We understand.” He cleared his throat and winked at his brother. “Don’t we understand, Jack?”

There was a smugness to his tone that made Frank’s stomach clench nervously.

“Sure, Mr. Handley. We understand,” Jack said.

The two men stood, almost in unison. “By the way, are you expectin’ any trouble makin’ the exchange?”

“Trouble?” Frank mirrored their stance, already eyeing the door. “What kind of trouble?”

Jack shrugged. “You know—law, for one, or them decidin’ not to pay, that sort of thing.”

Frank shook his head. “No, there should be no trouble. I’m certain she’ll pay. She may come herself, or send a messenger. Either way, take the bag and turn over the boy, and no one is to get hurt.”

“Okay. Okay. We’ve got it. Don’t worry.”

He started past Frank, then stopped when Frank said, “Don’t mess this up. If you do, if you get caught somehow, you’re on your own. If you tell anyone that I’m involved, I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles that I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

The two men didn’t seem to take offense, and they certainly didn’t seem concerned. “Don’t you worry, Mr. Handley. We’re not gonna get caught, and nothin’s gonna go wrong.”

The sun was nothing but an orange glow in a gray sky when Luke got back to the house. That damnable rain had moved on about twenty minutes ago, and the clouds actually showed signs of breaking up.

He took his horse to the stable. It was white clapboard outside, dark stained pine inside. The place was fancier than half the hotels he’d stayed in, and this just for a horse.

“Well, boy,” he said with a chuckle, “enjoy it, but don’t get used to it.”

Four stalls lined each side. The familiar scent of hay and the acrid scent of horses greeted him. A pair of chestnut carriage horses peered at him over the wooden stall gates. A couple of saddle horses also poked their heads out to check out the visitor.