"In which the Son of a Bitch shows his rat face."
Jimmy McPoyle presented in the dining room at luncheon with his intended, late enough in the day for the story of their engagement to have spread widely amongst the gang's inner circle and even a little beyond. The hotelier had not seemed thrilled at hearing that yet another lady of ill repute had taken up on the third floor, but the man had too much sense to make a fuss. Really, what had he expected in taking on the patronage of Edwin Rott's Gentlemen Gangsters? Boys would be boys, and boys had needs best satisfied at the very high-class bordello on the corner of Union and Main. All morning, ever since overhearing their lovers' kerfuffle from behind closed doors, Munroe had been keeping an eye out for Jimmy and his new flame. He rose to greet the two of them the moment he saw that carroty head pop up in the company of the maître d'.
"Man of the hour," he crooned as Jimmy stalked over, linked at the elbow with his ball-and-chain-to-be. "Talk of the town! Rumor says you had quite a yesterday evening, Ging." Jimmy managed to grimace through Munroe's welcome, while the girl on his arm blushed bright pink. "Ha! Ah, don't look so down, Jim, you're still a youngin'—takes a man a few more years to develop a sense of humor about his own bad decisions. No offense to the missus, of course! Now—" Munroe took the young lady around the shoulder and offered her a chair at the table he shared with Harold and Humphrey Jitters, leering in from either side. He settled down across from the happy couple and clasped his hands expectantly atop the table. "Won't you do me the honor of introducing me to your pretty fiancée?"
The lovers shared a nervous, lingering glance. Adorable.
"Gentlemen," Jimmy finally piped, then stopped to clear his throat before continuing in normal tones. "Gentlemen, I'd like for you to meet my bride-to-be, Wi... Wa... Juanita." They must have had a very good night together indeed; the lad could barely remember his girl's name. She shot him a withering look askance. "I met her only yesterday and knew right away that my, uh... my life would never be the same. We're in love," he finished, sounding very tired.
Munroe held out for the young woman's hands, and the girl flushed deeper still, but obliged him. "An absolute pleasure to meet you, ma'am," he promised, offering a kiss against the back of each of her gloves and a thorough appraisal out of the corner of his eye. Baby-faced as Jim might be, he was still obviously subject to those benedictions reserved for the young and virile, because hell if his one-night fiancée wasn't an absolute drink. She was six feet of pure woman, svelte and statuesque, with a long nose and longer jaw and legs that stretched all the way to the floor. Her chestnut hair fell thick around a respectable set of shoulders, and her hands, hastily withdrawn from his grasp, were absolutely enormous.
Munroe liked that in a woman, and this particular woman was of such a station in life that he couldn't see any reason not to let himself stare for a moment.
On Munroe's left, Humphrey Jitters lasciviously stirred his espresso. "Top-notch catch, this'un, Jim," he drawled. "Musta had a few tricks up her sleeve, that you scooped her up so quick-like." Humphrey had no head for niceties, and a knack for saying what everyone was thinking. That was what got him in trouble, usually. "Got me wishing I'd had a chance to see what all the fuss was about first."
"But hold on a tick, brother." Harold Jitters leaned sharply forward. "Didn't this young lady used to work at Madame Richielieu's?" The future Mrs. McPoyle drew backward in her seat, looking first confused, then horrified, then hopeful that Jimmy would intervene, but Jimmy just sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. He knew well enough by now that Harold was not a man easily deflected. The dame iced her fiance with another glare and, given no other option, finally spoke.
"You must have me mistaken for someone else," she breathed into a napkin, strategically muffled. Her voice was positively pitchy.
"No. I don't think so." Harold refuted her without hesitation or grace, craning slightly around the table to get a look at her from the side: "I'd never forget a pair of legs like that."
The twins snickered between themselves. Poor Miss Juanita was using those majestic hands to wring her napkin like a chicken's neck, and Jim looked as though he'd have liked to crawl into the seafood tank and eat dirt with the lobsters. Munroe, who had plenty of sympathy for the young and stupid, decided it was time to defuse the situation with a spot of tea.
"No need to take it personal, miss," he comforted the girl as he raised a hand to bring 'round the server. "We're all friends here. As Mister Rott has been known to say—"
"'Men can't conduct organized crime without spending quality time,'" drawled a new voice from over Munroe's shoulder. "Lord! If I ever have to hear another platitude shat out by my softheaded father." Munroe managed to turn his grimace into a grin just in time for Quentin Rott to round the table and pull out the last chair for himself, with the slouch of a man who knows he needn't wait to be invited anywhere.
The Jitters twins sat straight and quieted themselves, and even typically-irreverent Jimmy took sharp notice of the man who had just joined them for luncheon. Only the young lass Juanita seemed not to understand what sort of regard the Rott children demanded with their presence; she continued to sit with her shoulders drawn and her eyes avoidant, which Quentin noticed. Of course Quentin noticed. His pale eyes narrowed and interest quirked his sullen brow.
"Well, well, well," he murmured. "Now, Munroe, how did you know exactly what dish to order for me?" And he slicked back his hair with a hand.
Not at all like when Harold and Humphrey had been having their fun, Jimmy nearly jumped out of his chair. "Ging," Munroe said in warning tones, and to his credit, the boy managed to turn his anger into something like an expression of excitement. "Ah, Quentin! I thought you weren't expected in town until the morning of the wedding."
"Yes, well," Quentin said carelessly. "There was a bit of a kerfuffle back at the estate. My hag of a sister-in-law decided I was 'not welcome in her house, now or ever again,' so I made the decision of my own free will to abscond that hovel and make my early way to this… establishment."
The snarl in his voice did not portend a pleasant dining experience for any of them. Munroe had known Quentin since he was a boy, and the general trajectory of his upbringing had been that if the youngest Rott child was not getting what he wanted, neither might anyone else. The Jitters brothers looked jittery. "You know," Munroe said loudly, hoping to reroute the stream of conversation, "I don't believe the two of you have been properly introduced." He reached out to clap Jimmy on the arm. "Jim, we've found ourselves in the company of Quentin Rott himself. Quentin, my boy, this is Jimmy McPoyle. He's new 'round here, but very good at what he does, and you can take my word for that. Was the two of us working together on the Hayfever Job last month. Those sheep never knew what hit 'em."
"We've met before." Jimmy bared his teeth in a plausible smile. He didn't reach out for a shake, and Quentin seemed not to care. "In Waterdale, as a matter of fact."
"Certainly not. I've never been to Ottervale." Quentin still couldn't be bothered to look at Jim in favor of Juanita, across the table from him and half-hidden behind her kerchief. "So who is this delicacy, then?"
It wasn't until that moment that Jimmy's betrothed seemed to realize the extent of the attention which had been creeping toward her like a fog. Her eyes snapped up to meet Quentin's for the first time, and just a little steel glinted there.
Jimmy began to growl under his breath, "She's my–"
"My name," the lass interrupted her fiancé with a firm hand on the tabletop, "is Juanita."
Her fingers spread as wide as a dinner plate atop the kerchief she'd held crumpled in her palm. Several patrons at the nearest tables turned to look over the outburst. Munroe felt blown slightly backward by the power in her voice, finally coaxed to full volume; she immediately bit her lip, as if in embarrassment, but the reveal of such a vein of moxie beneath all her modesty was more intriguing than the largest pair of hands in all the world.
There was just something about this girl. Jimmy truly was a lucky man.
And Quentin seemed to agree. Against expectations, he did not pout over the displeasure radiating off her person, but leaned further forward, very nearly across Jim's plate: "I believe I may put in the effort to remember that," he murmured. Juanita squared her shoulders and pursed her lips, and looked as though she might speak again, but Humphrey Jitters took the opportunity for himself.
"She used to be one of Madame Richelieu's," he intoned matter-of-factly, "but our boy Ging 'ere scraped her up outta the gutter last night and now they're going to be married."
"You don't say." Quentin's smirk did not look disspirited in the least. He raised a lazy hand to summon the waiter. "Well. Easy come, easy go, I imagine. Isn't that how these things usually work, John?"
"Jim," said Jim.
"I don't care."
Quentin Rott kept his eyes on Juanita for the rest of their meal. He ordered off-menu and ate slowly when the dish finally arrived, swallowing each bite purposefully and then sighing with loud satisfaction. Creature of grace and dignity that she was, Juanita refused to rise to the bait. She focused all attention toward spearing her mesclun leaf-by-leaf.
"Have you tried the sausage?" Quentin asked after a point, spearing a link on his fork and waving it across Jimmy's plate. "Not you, Johnny, the girl. She'll relish it, I'm sure."
Juanita took a deep breath and seemed to carefully consider how to handle this. "I'm a vegetarian," was her decorous response.
A look of dangerous glee cracked the corner of Quentin's mouth. "I'm sure you've got a taste for meat," he crooned. "You'll find mine more filling than most." And he wiggled the sausage insistently again.
Juanita stood abruptly. A blush sat high on her cheeks and her fists were clenched like canned hams; "I have to use the restroom," she blurted, and swept quickly away from the table, pulling every eye as she passed, like iron filings chasing a lodestone. The space she left behind her felt almost bereft. Jimmy watched her go with a look of oddly calculated interest, unbothered by the sausage still dangling in his face.
"Suppose she wants me to follow her," he commented after a moment.
"Probably headed back to your room right now, mate," Harold Jitters confirmed. "You seen the look in her eye? That was an invitation to a midday lee-aye-shun if I ever heard one."
Humphrey nodded in agreement. "Women. They're insatiable, it's all they think about."
Still wearing the look of a man with a plan, Jimmy rose to his feet and dropped his napkin on the table. He bid them all "Gents," with a nod, and straightened his suspenders and then padded off to follow his girl out of the busy restaurant, bobbing orangely in between members of the waitstaff. Munroe cast a look out the corner of his eye at Quentin, who was still brandishing that pork link, still uncharacteristically game in mannerism. It was unnerving to see so persistent a smile on so devilish a face.
"I do believe I'm going to steal his fiancée," Quentin remarked, and made a show of baring his teeth while he took a hearty bite of sausage.
If anyone in this world had the perfidious luck to do such a thing, it was Quentin Rott. Munroe was determined not to involve himself in the antics sure to come, but nonetheless he silently wished the young sweethearts well, and ordered a round of dessert for everyone still at the table. Shame that Jimmy would miss out, but he had a far tastier treat awaiting him upstairs. Shed no tears for that one. At least not yet.
#
It took Beatrice a few minutes to track Wirt down the branching hallways past the Roman baths. One might expect the tallest dame on the premises to stick out a bit more prominently, but on and on Beatrice continued to walk, searching for another flash of the red-and-white skirt which had led her into the belly of the hotel in the first place. She finally found him in the rear atrium, when she gave a second glance to what she had assumed was some kind of decorative drop cloth laid out behind a lush dracaena. A pretty floral sun hat was set carefully on the ground next to it.
"Hey," she grunted as she parted the swordish leaves. Wirt was seated as smally as he could make himself, his hands wrapped around his knees and his vestments slightly caught on the stucco wall behind him, as though he had made a slow drop to the ground against it. His eyes were wide and his wig was ruffled. "You better get off the floor. You're gonna get dirt on your–"
"Who cares!" Wirt cried. His undisguised voice echoed through the big empty room loudly enough that Beatrice instinctively checked over her shoulder for eavesdroppers. It was only the two of them and the ivy on the walls, and the marble cupid atop the trickling fountain. "I'm going back upstairs and taking it all off anyway, I can't do this–"
"Oh, sure," Beatrice grumbled, "you'll wear a dress to save your brother from indentured servitude but not to help me on a quest for petty revenge–"
"That was awful." Wirt was going to ruin his gloves, wringing his hands so tightly. Someone ought to teach him how to properly treat such fine and expensive clothes. "That was humiliating. I can't believe you work with men like–"
Beatrice kicked the spread of his skirt out of the way so she could sit down next to him. She placed his hat in her lap. "I'm not their friend," she reminded him, leaning forward hotly. "I'm here to get back what was taken from me and rob these bastards blind in the process. Don't you get it, fool? Quentin Rott is the Son of a Bitch I infiltrated this gang to find! He's finally shown his rat face again for the wedding, and the time to strike is now." She closed a fist in the space between their faces. "Maybe he doesn't remember the girl he stole from in Waterdale, but he's sure as hell going to remember the names Jim and Juanita McPoyle."
"I'm not putting myself in the middle of this," Wirt said flatly. "Did you see the way he was looking at me?" A disgusted shudder ran across his shoulders.
It wasn't that Beatrice had no sympathy, but he was really overthinking the situation. "Quentin Rott is stupid, cowardly, and six inches shorter than you," she shot back. "What are you worried about, exactly?"
It took Wirt a moment to answer. He wove his fingers into the long brown locks around his temples and dug them in, hard. "It's humiliating," he said again finally. "It's–it's dehumanizing. Can you imagine what it's like, sitting at that table, everyone staring, everyone talking about you like you're not there or like you're a piece of food–"
"No," Beatrice deadpanned. "I, a girl, have absolutely no idea what it's like to hear men talk that way." A look of understanding dawned on Wirt's face. "I, a girl who once spent an entire season living as a teeny tiny little bird and eating maggots, have no idea what it's like to feel humiliated or dehumanized or completely reliant on favors from people who could–"
Wirt raised a hand to stop her. "Fine," he said miserably. "Fine. I get it." They didn't speak for a few minutes. The air rang with the distant sounds of the caldarium and laundry facilities. Gray light from the glass ceiling glimmered off the waters in the fountain. "The difference is," he finally remarked, "you actually were a bird." He extended a finger to brush one of the flowers on the brim of his hat. "I'm just wearing a dress."
Beatrice smirked at him, then let the smile fade slowly away as she decided to tell him something important. "You have to help me," she said firmly. "Probably literally. I made a wish on a star last night, so I don't think you'll be able to go home until I've gotten what I wanted."
The notion startled Wirt neatly out of his melancholy. "You wished for me to be here?" he demanded to know. She supposed she'd rather deal with him indignant than despondent. "Then why the third degree this morning, asking how I–?
"I didn't wish for you," Beatrice scoffed, and shoved the sun hat up into his face. "I wished for help. I was having a hard night. Kinda hoping one of my brothers might show up, or something." Wirt raised an eyebrow at her over the brim of the hat. "But you're what I have now, so we gotta find a way to make this work. I get my retribution, and you get to go home, all by the time the wedding is over. A wish come true for everyone." She stood up and held out a hand for him to join her. "What do you say, Juanita?"
"Don't call me that."
"What do you say, wifey?"
Wirt didn't accept her help standing up, but he did stand. He looked down at the sun hat with an expression of profound inner conflict, and finally put it back on. "This will all be over in two more days?" he asked, to set clear terms. "By the end of the reception?"
"Yes," Beatrice guaranteed. Making a promise you couldn't necessarily keep wasn't quite the same as lying.
He took a deep breath, straightened his back, and smoothed out his skirt. He wasn't happy, but at least he was on board again. "So what's your plan?" he asked. "Please tell me you have a plan."
"Of course I've got a plan," Beatrice said smoothly. They'd risen and recomposed themselves just in time for another wandering couple to enter the atrium on the far end. Looked like Concrete-Shoes O'Connor and his old lady. Beatrice hooked Wirt's arm and made a show of starting to guide him around the statuary: "Standard heist stuff. My first idea was to use the wedding as a distraction while I break into Rott's room to get my stuff back, but we can do better than that."
"What's more distracting than a wedding?" Wirt asked. His grip on her arm tightened as they passed by the O'Connors on their way out the door.
"You are," Beatrice said slyly. Wirt's face fell again. "Don't you think Quentin Rott is the type to care more about chasing tail than attending his sister's wedding reception? Wherever you are, he'll be there too. Guaranteed window of opportunity."
"I hate your plan."
"That's the spirit!"
Yorick, wearing a robe on his way out of the baths, paused in the hallway to watch the two of them go by. Beatrice returned his awestruck look with a smug nod. "Look at these idiots," she muttered. "Whatever you want from them, you'll get it. They're like putty in your hands. Just 'cause you're not wearing pants doesn't mean you're powerless. Sweetheart." She said the last word through her teeth as they rounded the corner and ran straight into the human wall which was Ulrich the Undertaker.
"So here is ze fräulein I keep hearing about," he boomed.
"You're damn right," Beatrice boasted, and slung a hand around Wirt's waist. His posture turned ramrod when she rubbed the outside of his thigh. "I'm taking this hot piece on a little shopping spree this afternoon! Only the best for my best girl."
Ulrich continued on his way, not before saying, "You two seem very happy togezer." They watched him go and Beatrice released Wirt immediately. He wrapped himself in an embrace to replace hers, wearing a haunted look.
"I hate your plan," he said again.
"I hate Quentin Rott," Beatrice countered. Wirt didn't seem to be able to argue with that. They gave one another a moment to stand awkwardly on opposite sides of the tiled hall, listening to the water from the baths behind them and the thrum of the grand entranceway ahead. Individually, they seemed to come to some kind of accord. They reluctantly linked elbows again, and stepped back out into the scrutiny of the afternoon.
This is probably as good a time as any to make it clear that, as lighthearted as I intend this fic to read, the central conceit still relies on the assumption that it will be funny to see Wirt unwillingly* sissified and sexually harassed by pretty much every man he meets over the course of three straight days. I certainly think it's funny. But let this serve as a content warning if that doesn't sound like your cup of tea.
*at least it's unwilling at first, kek