Thief's Reciprocity

Gretchen took the liberty of sleeping the rest of the afternoon to gain full recovery from the previous night, and when she opened her eyes from her prolonged nap, she found herself staring into darkness. She had decided to take advantage of the fact that, within the week, she wouldn't have the luxury of a bed and would have to be sharing an uncomfortable stretch of sand with the illustrious Mr. Daniels. As she dragged herself from the haphazardy of waking in the night, she recalled, with a personal little snort, the vague memory of her present client. He was a short man: that, Gretchen determined with a sigh, very nearly summed him up. After he had informed her that he was employing her services for an inflated price over the course of the trip, she gave him fifteen minutes of what he'd paid for--after which, he passed into a slumber of maybe half an hour. She'd heard him stir and leave the room in a brief moment of waking before she fell fast and hard into the subconsciousness of sleep again. Gretchen decided his abbreviated everything was going to make this a rather blissful money-making venture. Granted, she was hardly ecstatic about hanging around some dusty, crumbling ruins, but for fifty dollars a night, she decided she could bear it.

Fifty bucks a night...on a week and a half dig...That was five hundred dollars. With five hundred dollars, she could leave Cairo.

The thoght struck her oddly as she pulled herself from the bed and fumbled for a lamp. Gretchen frowned in heavy consideration. Her fingers found a little metal knob, and twisting it created a warm, growing yellow light that illuminated her dark little enclave. Leave Cairo...and go where? She supposed back to America, to New York and her mother and a real job somewhere. Her stomach twisted uncomfortably as she tried to imagine a reality with rain and cold and people who spoke her language. She tried to place herself working as a receptionist or a cashier in some quaint little shop, and having men flirt with her and ask her out to dinner. Gretchen didn't try to hold down the soft, incredulous laugh in her throat. The whole idea was so benignly surreal. Her, living at home with Mama again? Her, getting married to some Cillian or Sean from the old neighborhood, and wearing a white dress down the aisle? Gretchen snorted and began to get dressed. She couldn't have her adolescence back. What was she supposed to say about the five years she was gone? What was she to tell Mama, or this proverbial husband, or employer? Surely she wasn't supposed to grow to be an old woman, chatting on the street about grandchildren after being a whore in Cairo. Surely she wasn't supposed to make money without taking a man to bed, or have children with a father, or take the name of the gentleman who sexed her.

It occured to Gretchen rather suddenly that she was supposed to die before this possibility ever arose. All the smoke and mirrors of one day leaving the life were supposed to reveal their common, disappointing trick, and she was supposed to die wretched and diseased and starving in the streets. Nobody was supposed to give her five hundred dollars. Gretchen decided she wouldn't let Daniels in on the apparently elusive logistics of the world, and take her money with a thank you. Still...what was she supposed to do with it?

With a sigh, Gretchen decided that she would figure it out later and pushed her unusual position to the back of her mind. After all, the week was not over and the money was not in her hands. She could have a prostitute's proper death yet. Still, the idea of five hundred dollars promised to her made Gretchen smile in a way she hadn't in some time, and she hummed as she buckled her garters and buttoned her blouse. She chanced a look in the mirror and noticed that Daniels had crookedly shoved a picture of some woman in the framework. Gretchen cocked her head to the side, considering the woman's bobbed, pin-curled hair. She glanced at her own reflection, slipping her fingers between the locks and imagining them shorn at her chin. It would make them a hell of a lot easier to manage, she mused.

Meeting her own eyes, she pined for her make-up kit. A little rouge and shadow and she might be worth a second glance tonight. The sleep had flushed her face and the thought of escape had awoken features that had been mechanical for some time. With a ruthless sigh, she pinched her cheeks and bit down hard on her bottom lip, watching the flow of blood to her face. She shrugged, determining that she had no choice but to be satisfied, and left the room. The hall led to the left and to the right, up a flight of stairs to what had to be the deck. Gretchen gripped the wall and took careful steps down the long corridor; she hadn't been on a boat since her trip to Egypt in the first place, and doubted she had much tolerance for the natural rock and dip of the water. She reached the deck with a sigh, taking a breath of the cool air and murky water. The smell of cigars and liquor nearly drowned it out, and the noise all around implied a crowd of people. Gretchen noticed a gaggle about a poker table; among them, Daniels and his companions and...well, she'd be damned. Jonathan Carnahan.

"Well it's about time you woke up!"

Gretchen glanced up to meet her client's winking gaze. She fought back the desire to roll her eyes.

"We was just startin' a new round of poker. You want, Jonathan can deal you a hand," a shaggy, blonde man invited with a grin. Gretchen smiled politely. She didn't even know how to play poker.

"No, that's okay--"

Jonathan glanced over his shoulder, meeting her eyes. His wide, blue gaze lit with surprise, and he stared at her for a thoughtful moment.

"What are you doing here, love?"

He reached his arm out and Gretchen took a step closer to allow him to grasp her waist from where he sat. Daniels shot him a look.

"She's with us," he muttered implicatively.

Gretchen had to wonder why he would bother being protective. Any man on the barge could have her any other time he pleased. In fact, to be perfectly technical, any man could still have her, as long as it was during the day, seeing as how Daniels had specified nights as his payment period.

"Oh," Jonathan breathed with an anxious smile, removing his arm. "I see."

Daniels pulled out an empty chair from another table within his grasp, twisting it next to himself. "Come have a seat, sugar!"

Gretchen obliged with an eager smile, though she would have much rather prefered a walk alone on the deck. She stared at the table with polite disinterest as Jonathan began to deal out the cards.

"So if you don't mind my asking," he began conversationally, "what is it you fine gentlemen do for a living?"

The three Americans glanced at each other; Gretchen's interest was piqued.

"Well," the spectacled one began with a little smirk, "we don't mind you askin' if you don't mind us not tellin'!"

His friends laughed for entirely too long before Daniels explained:

"We're bootleggers!"

Gretchen's brow furrowed curiously, and she glanced over at her client in genuine interest. "What does that mean?"

The blond was mocking her with a chortle. "Shit, and I figured you to be American!"

She forced a polite smile, reminded of the five hundred dollars again. "I am, I just...haven't been there for a while."

"See, honey, we got this Prohibition law passed back in '20," Daniels began, situating the cards in his hand by suit. Gretchen stared at him in shock. She remembered talk of outlawing liquor back when she was a teenager, but all the old neighborhood men had laughed it off over their ale. She tried to imagine Hell's Kitchen without the factory men religiously communing at the bar for a drink after a long day of work. "And folks started gettin' awful thirsty..."

Their guffahs echoed a little longer before the blond picked up the story again, "We run moonshine 'round the Chicago area. I ain't even from Illinois, but that's where the money's at. Burns here, he dropped outta college there at--where was you goin'?"

The quiet man with a glasses tried to hide the flush of color in his cheeks. "Moody."

"Right!" the blond continued, "He dropped outta Moody to bootleg with us!"

Gretchen glanced up at the man, presumably Burns, waiting to see if he'd look up, too. She'd heard of Moody. It was a fairly new establishment, started by that evangelist out in Chicago. She wondered if he'd wanted to be a pastor before Daniels and his shaggy friend had roped him into the whir of easy money, and she found herself thankful he didn't get the chance to preach to a congregation. Any man that easily dragged into crime was probably better off staying out of churches altogether.

"And this makes money?" Jonathan inquired, laying a bid on the table. Daniels gave him a smug grin.

"I'm here, ain't I? I'm layin' a hundred dollars for my bid, ain't I?"

Gretchen glanced back at the deck again, entranced by its loneliness. It was nearly desolate, except for a woman and her book. She leaned far to her other side, trying to catch a glimpse of the opposite side of the deck. There were more people, a few couples having a chat, and a thin, gaunt fellow nursing a drink. Gretchen's eyes widened. She turned quickly to Daniels.

"I'm going to go see somebody for a minute."

He frowned curiously. "See somebody? Who?"

Something in the back of her mind was irritated by being watched like a child, but something in the front yelled, "Five hundred dollars!" and silenced her desires to be rude or sarcastic. She smiled and decided that she couldn't go home to her mother ever again.

"An old...friend." She had to choke the word out. Never before had she referred to him, in word or thought, as a friend.

Daniels shrugged, going back to his game. "Okay."

Gretchen stood up, squeezing through the crowded tables and past a scowling man who glared up at her through his monocle. She didn't take the time to be offended and slipped over to the deck, dropping in a chair across from her "friend," as it were. He looked up from the amber enigma in his glass, surprise glinting silver in his off-blue eyes.

"What are you doing here?"

She reminded herself, again, that he wasn't doing that sing-song whine to annoy her; it was just the way he spoke. "I was looking for you yesterday."

He pushed away his initial shock to smirk in his mind's dirty manner. "I knew you'd miss it after a few days."

Gretchen sighed, turning her attention to the rolling, smelling water surrounding them. "I needed a place to stay."

He stared at her in interest. "Ghazi kicked you out?"

She shook her head in wonder, rolling her eyes at the ridiculous nature of her situation. "He was going to sell me to some desert chieftain...You have an apartment, right?"

He took an uneasy swallow of his drink. "I did when I left this morning, but the landlord has been trying to kick me out for weeks. I do not know if it will still be mine when we get back. We will see."

Gretchen snorted quietly, connecting gazes with the full, white-hot moon. It was never that impressive in the city, never gave any light to the murky streets. She sighed.

"That guy Daniels is giving me five hundred dollars to screw him over this trip."

She could feel his eyes sneering at her. "They're giving me a thousand to take them out there..."

Her eyes flashed back to his. She knew a thing or two about Beni. He'd told her about his cons on numerous occasions. "And bring them back?"

He made an indistinguishable sound of disgust in the back of his throat, taking another drink. "Yes. Unfortunately."

Gretchen watched him set the glass down, and reached across the table, wrapping her fingers around the cold, nearly-empty container. She took a gulp, grimacing.

"Gin? Seriously?"

Beni looked at her with an incredulous eye, tilting his head to the side. "So what is the real reason you came over here? Did you not fit in with the other Americans?"

She didn't like his mocking sneer, or his tone. She jerked her chin in a defiant little motion. "I'm still gonna need that place to stay when we get back."

He grinned impishly. "What are you going to give me for it?"

Gretchen sighed, gazing up at the moon as she muttered the mechanical, cliched words: "Whatever you want."

She wondered why he even asked as he leaned back in his chair with a satisfied smirk. They both knew she only had one thing worth any remote value, and even then--it was damaged goods. She figured the only reason he ever raised the question was to feel powerful over her; to get a surge from forcing her to stoop to some social low on his whim. Sometimes, Gretchen mused that he was the one stooping. He was the one accepting something as fleeting and ultimately ungratifying as sex for a place to sleep. Maybe they were both fools, trying to deal in human flesh and passion and dingy, cramped tenements.

Gretchen very nearly asked him about his opinion on the all-too-common trade-off, but he had jumped out of his seat rather suddenly, and was crouching over to the pile of luggage thrown unceremoniously in the center of the deck. Her brow furrowed in interest:

"What is it?" she asked in a loud whisper.

Beni glanced back at her, starting to squeeze himself into a small opening between the suitcases and a wall.

"O'Connell."