Between the Raindrops

Money Lending and Other Sins Prelude

Money lending was a delicate game.

It was all in the selection of the mark. You needed one with the right balance of desperation and will. Timing was an important factor. Sometimes the most important. A great usurer must have an excellent sense of timing.

"There's one of ours," Leopold said, peering over his copy of the Blackwater Ledger and nodded in the right direction. They were leaning back against the red-brick façade of the Imperial Theater. They kept in its morning shadow.

Arthur followed Leopold's gaze to the petite doctor stepping out of the quarantined house. In a dress of tulip and willow patterned cashmere wool. Pearl drop earrings. Hair styled in an elegant French pleat. Terribly out of place in Blackwater. Like an orchid growing in the most fetid of swamps.

Arthur frowned, taking a pull of his cigarette. "You can't be serious," the younger man grumbled. His voice dropped to a harsh, anxious whisper. "That's the doc from the stage heist."

Leopold smiled thinly. "Then I have you to thank for this serendipitous window of opportunity," he replied archly.

Arthur looked down at his cigarette, his dark hat casting his weathered face in deeper shadows. Strauss noted the shiver of contempt pulling at the younger man's lips. "Seems I got a gift for causing misery."

"The debt is starting to... mature."

"Christ," Morgan muttered. "You are serious."

Leopold laughed. "She's been doing this for two weeks now. Bought herself a horse and hasn't even used it. I hear she is near useless in the saddle. She has spent our money on all manner of precious items... morphine, vaccines, ether. Not that I do not appreciate the value of medical supplies, but... she wastes it on useless endeavors."

"I reckon that family don't find it useless," Arthur put in, nodding towards the condemned house.

Leopold could not help but smirk at the younger man's blunt observation. It was good Arthur left the thinking to the elders. "The mother and a child have succumbed already. And still she persists! A fool's errand but it must be to our gain."

"So?" Arthur asked irritably, pushing away from the wall. "What's it to do with me?"

"Is there a problem, Herr Morgan?" Leopold asked, eyeing up the sullen outlaw. "You grumble as if I do not cut you in."

Arthur swatted the question away. "What do you want Mr. Strauss," he asked.

"I want you to remind her that she still owes money," Leopold explained.

"Doubt she forgot."

"Just... Have a little chat, will you?" Leopold suggested. "Let her know she can always pay with those earrings, or the clothes off her back, if she wants. I don't care."

"That's clear," the gruff enforcer drawled.

"Just make sure she starts thinking about ways to return what is owed."

"Said yerself it's only been two weeks," Arthur reasoned, staring at the house. He rolled his shoulder. "I don't know," he said, shaking his head. He scratched the dark burnished scruff on his face. "Seems like this whole thing is downright... unnecessary."

"Hm. Perhaps you are right," Strauss allowed, growing impatient with Morgan's complaining. This was not a job for a man who overthinks. "Or perhaps... I need to find one more dedicated? I will ask one of the other boys. Herr Bell, perhaps, might be willing to assist me."

Arthur's stance visibly stiffened at the suggestion. He made eye-contact and Leopold smiled at the fury he found in the enforcer's face. Devoted. Prideful. Pliable. "Fine," he snarled. "I'll do it."

"Are you certain, Herr Morgan?" Leopold pressed with a touch of derision. "I would hate to trouble your conscience."

Arthur flicked his cigarette to the ground. "It'll be my goddamn pleasure," he muttered, stamping out the ember.