Disclaimer: I own none of the characters presented in this story. Red Dead Redemption and all associated with said property belong to Rockstar Games.

Disclaimer: Strong depictions of violence, murder, and other such heinous and repugnant acts, very harsh language used throughout, and some taboo and offensive material occasionally presented.

Act Two

The Unholy Union, the Summer Boy, and the Best Friends

Part Twenty-One: Lenny

6:43 AM, July 23rd, 1899

Lenny Summers groaned in weary annoyance, clawing his hands through the coarse, grainy gray sand, drawing tiny valleys in it. His cheek, likewise, was pressed on the beach as he lay face-first beside his two companions.

"Everyone… alright?" asked Charles, already standing up, thudding his head against a tree branch that hung low. "Who the fuck put this tree here?" he growled in pain, rubbing his head.

Lenny leaned forward, planting his elbow and forearm where the stiff, arid grass and sandy beach met, pushing himself onto his knees. "I'm… good."

"Y-yo… yo también…" Javier moaned, bumping his head on a tree that mirrored Charles' exactly. "¡Maldito árbol!"

"Did we save any money?"

"I-I lost the bag, but I got…" Charles ripped off his navy blue jacket, letting the wind blow it back into the nearby waters which spat it back onto the shoreline and undid the buttons on his white dress shirt, revealing his handiwork: dozens and dozens of green bills he'd strapped to his shaved hazel-brown chest with two fancy moose leather belts (must've looted them off corpses). Except the belts had been ripped (shocker, fancy belts weren't any sturdier than normal ones) at their centers and dangled limply. All that marked his haul was a few lucky wet bills lodged between the corners where the belt was still taut. "... fo-five hundred… and… t-thirty something."
"I got…" Javier began, struggling with the bowline knot he'd tied to keep the straps of his duffel bag bound to his wrist. Then he discovered the massive hole that ate the bottom of the bag. Only a few dollars were left. "Fuckin' shit!" he screamed, swinging the bag up into the trees.

"How much was that?" Lenny asked.

"Fuckin' nothing! ¡Cero!"

"That's not zero, so how much? I know you're angry—"

"Shut the fuck up! Motherfucker! ¡Rezagada!" Javier sucked on some long deep breaths and turned his gaze downwards. His grimace faded to a flat line and he spoke softly: "Sorry. I-I'm sorry. I'm just—goddamn it, there was fuckin' thousands of dollars there…"

"I know, man."

"Shit…!" he straightened his back, reaching as high as he could, and scooped the light-as-a-feather bag down the tree's limbs. "I think this is… a hundred? Two hundred?"

Lenny searched his pockets—it was a weak way to smuggle the money against the sea, he knew, but he wasn't great under pressure (that was more Dutch's avenue)—finding two soggy bills in each pocket—plus a quarter. He'd put almost three grand there before the harsh waves had shaken it off of him. "I got one-ninety plus six twenty-five, so altogether that's…"—he scratched his non-existent beard for guidance—"nine-hundred twenty and twenty-five cents."

"How much was in the bags?" Javier asked.

"I don't see how that—"

"How much?!"

"Sixty-four thousand dollars. Maybe more."

Javier started up again with a vulgar stream of curses. He grabbed a stone, a plump, fat one, and tossed it as far out as he could into the sea, but still not nearly far enough to hit the Grand Korrigan's stern decks that were poking out of the water.

But even if Javier wouldn't admit it, they had been damn lucky.

When they retreated back to the boat, there was nowhere to go, they were completely blocked in. They had cover on the Korrigan, and the Pinks couldn't storm the docks without being easily picked off, but that couldn't last. They only had so many bullets, and the agents never seemed to stop appearing.

And just when all hope seemed lost, their saving grace had been Mr. Pearson.

Charles had paid attention to a few of his Navy stories—not enough to properly man a boat, but enough to get it moving. So whilst Lenny and Javier were counting their bullets while keeping the only chokepoint to the Grand Korrigan too hot to cross, Charles was pulling them away from the harbor.

The trouble came with the storm. It was titanic, the worst the three men had ever endured—if Charles was Christian, he would have believed it rivaled the Flood of Noah. The ebony waves mashed their behemoth of a vessel around like a puppet; the cargo hold became awash, and the water rose until the red floors of the first deck were smothered with dark navy ripples, then the mint-green floors of the second deck. Naturally, there weren't any life rafts—the Grand Korrigan was far too spectacular, no force on earth could sink it, so why bother with such trivial things when the hull was in dire need of a fresh coat of paint? Time shot by in a blur, but Lenny remembered a hailstorm of opaque water tearing through the walls, bulldozing through the green poker tables, and blowing chips across the room in a manner mirroring the way black streams splashed. It bounced off the floors and thick hordes of droplets coated the gambling floor—in ten seconds water flowed up to his ankles, yet he was still spitting out the freezing fluid that misted over his face.

And a few moments later, then the water was really at his face, demoting him to pathetic grunts as he paddled timidly against the rising tide. He tried to hold that fat duffle bag, but it was oh so heavy, so so heavy—fatter than Uncle, fatter than Pearson, and he just couldn't do it.

As they leapt out from the boat's mint green deck outside, swimming to the island in the distance, Lenny relented, letting the bag slip from his grasp after stuffing his pockets with as much as he could fit. Then those dark, impermeable waves crashed over and all he could see was the endless abyss of nightfall.

Presently, Lenny questioned Javier, both as a means to calm the Mexican down and out of genuine curiosity. "What happened to Dutch? Did they… did they get him? Like they got…"

He didn't need to finish—which was good because he couldn't—for Javier to answer. "No. I saw him. He got away clean on The Count. With Micah."

"Reckon that means our horses are dead or displaced," reasoned Charles. Lenny couldn't find a strong argument against that logic. Oh, damn… Maggie…

"That fuckup…" Javier gripped. "That fuckin'—"

"Top of the mornin'." came an authoritative voice that caused all three men to writhe in apprehension. Because they knew it wasn't theirs.

He had a bushy orange mustache that took up most of his face, and speaking of faces, the man next to him had a hideous one. He boasted two sets of completely unrelated and distinct scars, one crossing from his left eye to his chin, and the other from his low cheekbone to his tiny nose.

And they were wearing bright blue police uniforms. It was complete with loaded Lancaster repeaters.

The hell?! Lenny thought, his mind scrambling. We're back in Saint Denis?! B—no. No. That's impossible. We swam to an island. An isl—oh. Oh God…

He knew before Clementine said it. "What brings y'all to Sisika Penitentiary?"

"Sisika Penitentiary," Charles echoed, sighing and lifting his annoyed countenance to the sky.

Hosea always said that a good lie is alloyed with the truth, so that's where Lenny began.

"Hello, good sirs! That's a good question, but to answer it, Imma need to ask you to brace yourselves."

"Consider us fully braced, kiddo," sniggered Scarface, staring intensely at Lenny. Like he saw right through him.

Shit… did the Pinks send a telegram through so any islands or shorelines would know to keep a lookout for anyone comin' in by boat? A trio thirty-three percent Mexican, fifty-one percent black, and sixteen percent Native American wouldn't exactly blend in.

All the same, he continued his tall tale:

"Last night, we were sailing on the river running a gambling ring, providing a disproportionate amount of booze and illegal quantities of opium, just minding our own business (that was a joke, there are two witnesses here that heard me say that was a joke so don't you try and arrest us on them charges), when the shitshow of a storm blindsided us. Chicagoed our ship! Smashed it to smithereens! Split my associates and me up from the rest of our crew and washed us ashore on your lovely island." If they were buying it, they certainly didn't show it. "But, lovely as it is, we really got to get back to our boss, he's like a baby in a swimming pool without us, and there are some illegitimate stocks we own, that I'd like to toss as early as can be done before August, so you got a boat we could borrow? Telephone, telegraph? Hell, I'll settle for a raven and a piece of paper." He chuckled at this and was surprised when the two officers did as well. Charles and Javier tried to jump in but started just as soon as the guards broke off, leading to an awkward half-giggle on their parts. "But seriously, a boat will do just fine, if it's not too much trouble."

"What is your line a' work exactly?" Clementine inquired.

"Well," Lenny chuckled, "a better question would be 'What isn't our line a' work?' We handle practically all the business of our benefactor, who you've no doubt heard word of or read about in the papers: Tacitus Kilgore. We wo—"

"Who?"

Lenny catapulted premeditated waves of laughter at this. "Good one. Anyway, we—"

"No, seriously, who is he?"

"Y-you ain't never heard of Tacitus Kilgore? Good God, man, you been living under a rock?"

"Well, Lenny," Javier added, catching on, "to be fair, most of our business is done abroad. They'd probably only be familiar with him if they was exceptionally interested in the international commerce section of the papers. Are you boys exceptionally interested in the international commerce section of the papers?"

"N-no," Clementine answered, confused. Good. That's how we want him.

"Anyway," Lenny continued, "we work for him. And if my sparkling personality and silver tongue haven't given it away, we ain't no manservants either—we're his private advisors."

"Are you now?" Scarface said condescendingly.

"Yeah. There's"—he stopped to theatrically count how many of them there were—"three of us, so think of us as Tacitus Kilgore's arms and legs."

"But that's—"

"His mama's the right arm."

"Oh."

"We advise and direct him on most of the company's decisions, we conduct research and develop reports about said research, we handle the treatment and growth of many of his assets, and occasionally will participate in some espionage and sabotage of rival companies—that was a joke, I have witnesses, that was not a confession. Like I said, we're his arms and legs, think of him as a head and dick. Now when that head isn't drowning in a bucket of booze, that's the face of the enterprise, a white one, a usable one. And that dick, well… when it ain't in everything that moves, it's… well… it ain't the smallest I've ever seen. And Tacitus… he-he ain't the sharpest knife, let's just say that. That's why we gotta get back to him now, before he invests the whole damn company into… oh… w-what's that thing, uh, that thing the magicians use…" He looked to Charles for support.

"Rabbits?"

"No… the, uh, fake thing with the ball…" Javier next.

"The, uh, act with the elephant?"

"No… the one where the guy gets shot…"

"Prop guns?" Scarface humored.

"Yeah! Tha—no. No, that's not it. Whatever, close enough. You get me? So is there anyone we can talk to? And I'm not talkin' about shift managers or straw bosses or middle management. I'd like to see the warden now."

Lenny expected an immediate answer ("no" he hoped, he had a whole counterspeech prepped for that) but instead dead silence followed for what seemed like hours. Then Scarface spoke.

"That's a good one. I ain't heard much better, I gotta say."

Lenny cleared his throat. Despite himself, he couldn't resist the urge to scratch the back of his neck. It made him look guilty as hell—like a poker player staring down into his glass because he'd hoped the table would've folded and now had to go to war with a Seven High.

"What do you mean?"

Scarface smiled, and with that mark on his cheek looking like a Glasgow smile raised a few inches too high, he seemed to be sporting two grins. "We got a lotta guys comin' around here with their clever stories. 'Please sir, tide swept my wee canoe up—can ya let me in your secure prison so I can get out of this dreadful heat?' Here's some advice—I'll even make it free—try growing a pair of tits when you give me your little pitch, I'll be infinitely more engaged that way."

"I, uh—"

"So who're you here for? Big Man Mike? Joseph Ryatt? Lian Zhou? Some member of the Lemoyne Raiders? I'm not sure how ya plan on getting anyone out when you ain't packing any guns. Oh… gonna swipe 'em off us, eh?"

"Sir," Lenny started, "you have arrived at a sympathetic yet destructively incorrect conclusion. You can see our boat for yourselves, take a gander…" He pointed them to the Korrigan's rear that protruded from the shining dawn river. "There she is."

"All that proves is you were dedicated to your cock and bull story," Scarface argued, turning to his companion. "If this goes to hell, it's on us, let's just shoot 'em and be done with. If it comes back, just say the storm made 'em punch-drunk and they got violent with us."

"Works for me," Clementine answered innocently as he aimed his gun at Javier.

"Wait!" Lenny screamed. "What if we could provide irrefutable proof of our character via documents of identification in our pockets? Would that change our situation?"

Clementine's death grip on his repeater relaxed as he responded with "Sure, yeah."

"Aha!" Lenny celebrated, snapping his arm skywards like he'd alighted on some equation that bemused scholars for centuries.

"So… you got it?"

"Of course not," he said simply. "But we've established now that you are not adamant about our being charlatans or else you would've shot us dead by now, assuming that documentation would be as crooked as a dog's tail."

"We can still fix that," Scarface snarled, holding his gun rigid in their direction.

"We most certainly can! I see now that you men are sitting on a fence, the jagged post cap cutting into your rectums. A very uncomfortable predicament. So lets us alleviate you of said predicament and get you right off that fence. I hear a nice summer bonus does wonders…"

"You're trying to bribe us?"
"Wh—no. No, God, no. As I clarified directly prior, our benefactor is very wealthy, and without a good sense for money—remember, that's our job—is very generous. Let us speak to the warden, get this knotted mess straightened out, and I assure you you'll be handsomely rewarded."

They said nothing, but Lenny could see that green lust flash in their eyes and couldn't help a toothy simper.

"C'mon… what you got to lose? Worse case: we're liars and the warden kills us on sight. Best case: you're each eight hundred dollars richer."

"Eight hundred?" scoffed Clementine, insulted.

Lenny groaned dramatically before reluctantly countering. "Fine… twelve hundred, but not a cent more. That's a gift."

Clementine and Scarface exchanged glances, considering the offer.

"You got a deal," Scarface smirked, before adding, "and while it might not seem it, it is truly your lucky day, gents. Because the ticket fee to the warden is usually in the five digits, but on account of y'all's sparkling personalities—excerpt for you,"—he motioned towards Charles—"words cost nothing, buddy, use 'em—I'm lowering the price to, shall we say… nine-hundred twenty and twenty-five cents."

"Oh, you heard that, huh?"

"Are you kidding me?!" Javier barked enraged. "Do you know what—"

"Miguel! Miguel!" Lenny had to spit it out a third time for Javier to respond to his new name. "These officers are being more than reasonable, I think we ought to repay the favor."

"I agree," Charles voiced on, forking over his five hundred thirty with his left hand while grabbing Javier's shoulder with his right, pinching it hard, reminding Javier not to do anything reckless.

Lenny came next, proffering his paltry wealth to Scarface who scooped it up with two fingers in a gleeful, graceful motion. Next was Javier, who, after a tight grip coiled in on his shoulder and searing brown eyes begged him, slowly surrendered the last of the funds.

And like that, the final cent from the Saint Denis job was lost forever. The Dutch Van der Linde Gang never made a nickel more from that filthy megalopolis.

The waltz to the pentagram-shaped prison was brief—the small archipelago making up Sisika Penitentiary was divided into three islands and the one they stood on was dominated by the enormous jailhouse that stretched across it like Uncle, limbs spread out, drunkenly snoring on a narrow mattress. The second island lay directly to the left of them; it was smaller by half and mostly wetland—there were no fields or structures fixed on it, it was to abide obliviously to the business of its brothers. The third was of equal mass to the first and second islands combined, it was surrounded by watchtowers, but most land was left open for the prisoners to farm and keep. A labor camp.

At the main gate, Clementine addressed someone atop the impregnable twenty-foot-tall stone wall, requesting entry. Some skinny fellow, a young lad named Milliken chattered back and forth with Lenny's pair of escorts (he revealed their names, but Lenny was so disinterested that he didn't hear) before giving them a welcoming wave in. The checkered iron portcullis rose and the five men stepped inside.

While Lenny admittedly hadn't been in many jails (that one night with Arthur in Valentine was the only one that jumped out at him) he felt that even if he had, he'd still be envious. The place was something else. They don't call it maximum security for nothing.

There were watchtowers that pierced the sky, hundreds of prison cells marked by the barred windows on the brick buildings, and dozens of wagons stuffed with supplies. He felt like he'd stepped into Wonderland, like there was a whole other world to explore. Of course, he knew that the world was probably pretty small for the prisoners—just the cells, mess hall, and fields. But for the guards, it musta been like a second Saint Denis. He remembered there was a whole ward dedicated to women in identical black and white uniforms and couldn't help the excitement that picture instilled in him. Get your head together, man. The goal is to get outta here.

They were led across the hand-cut (probably by prisoners) stone pathway leading to the main ward, between the infirmary and utility room. The inside of the building was far less appealing; a long hallway that seemed to stretch for miles. Above swung dim, flickering pale-yellow light that assaulted Lenny's eyes when they shot up for a second-long glance. The walls were only half present—thick steel bars drooped from the ceiling to the floor, containing the inmates on the other side, who screamed and hollered at the prospect of fresh meat in Sisika.

"I must remind you," Lenny said to their escorts, "we paid full price for a tour of the warden's office, not of the inside of a dank cell."

"Shut up," came Scarface. Not much of an answer.

"Heys! Heys! I knows ya!" came a voice from the left. Lenny turned, confused to see a young boy, about his age, clad in stripes, eyes wide with recognition, aimed right at Javier. "You's the fuckin' dippy plimick! Yeah! Yeah! Your kisser is scored into me eyes' head!"

"Oh, great," bemoaned Clementine, "this guy again."

"Guard! Guard! This Mexi's the guy I's told ya 'bout! Feller what croaked me pappy and me mammy and me brothers and Edie—oh, what sweet dice she had! But an oversized gulper by two, ya couldn't even gives a hello to her."

"Porter, either learn English or lock it up!"

Porter. That name brought it back. Arthur had told him about that escapade he and Javier had gone on: a family of inbred headcases squatting on a nice farm—they'd the shed on fire to draw them out of the main house and shot most of them to hell. Afterward, the duo had torn the place upside down, finding a secret room ten feet underneath the stables. Looks like this kid was a product of that.

Wait, Lenny realized, as they continued on their way to the stairs, if this kid's been put away, then the Chez Porter is empty. And we're in need of a new Shady Belle…

His thoughts were cut off by the final scream of "I'll be houndin' ya, ya greasa! You best be keepin' one eye a valley when you's driftin' off cuz these bars here ain't gonna do jam! No jam, I says!"

"I fuckin' hate that guy…" Clementine whispered as they stepped foot on the stairs and made their slow, arduous ascension to the top floor. Charles and Javier were fit and strong-gaited, but Lenny felt like he was going to die—it was worse than crash landing here, worse than that agonizing hangover he'd had at Valentine. Needless to say: it was a lot of stairs.

The hallway the stairs bled into was opposite the one downstairs in every way: it was short, and the open windows on every side made it feel more spacious than it was; it was quiet too, Lenny heard the throbbing of his own heart for the first time today and the cool breeze that filtered in was a pleasant luxury.

The walk to the end of the hallway was brisk, and luckily, there were no inbred orphans to henpeck them en route. A black door awaited them with a sort of dominating patience, like a cat playing with a mouse. It's okay. Take all the time you need to die—I can wait.

Scarface knocked and, after a hoarse voice shouted for them to enter, slowly slid the door ajar.

Sitting at a matching obsidian-shaded table was the warden.

He was dressed more for socializing than superintending: his police uniform was fancy ebony redux with golden buttons (real gold too, Lenny had been amongst robbers long enough to tell the difference), white cougar gloves, and a top hat that would make Trelawny blush. Must be just off the boat from Saint Denis.

Heh, Lenny snorted as covertly as possible, we got so much in common already.

"What the hell do you want?" he asked, speeding through the contrasting white papers on his desk—there were towers of them. He would lick his gloved finger, scribble something on so quickly there was no way it was coherent, and then repeat the cycle with as much haste as possible. Someone's trip to Saint Denis put him behind on his paperwork.

"These men," Scarface introduced lamely, "want a boat."

"Huh?"

"Well," Lenny dove in, trying to salvage this first impression before it was too late, "that's a very bare-bones way to describe it…"

"Is it not accurate?"

"I-it is… but, uh, scratching the surface to put it lightly."

"Just like these forms," the warden mumbled, looking down to his left at his small pile of completed papers before looking up to his right at what remained. Lenny positioned his black-sleeved arm between the warden's weary white-tipped fingers and the white mountain, wiggling the fingers, indicating he wanted the hand shaken.

"Hello, Mister Warden, I'm called Leonard Mercier…" The warden made no move to touch the boy, so he leaned forward, clasping their hands together jovially, like they were old friends, before slanting off to the edge of the large pedestal desk, revealing his companions. He pointed to Javier. "And this is Miguel Ruiz"—then Charles—"and this one's got some Indian name no one can pronounce, so everyone just calls him Bill. Any—"

"Sorry, I would like you to stop there," the warden said, itching his eye, "because I ceased listening after the first thing you said. Because it was a dog-faced lie."

"W-what?" Lenny stuttered, taken aback.

"You ever read 'bout Auguste Dupin?"

"Here we go…" groaned Clementine, out of earshot.

"Or Sherlock Holmes, perhaps?"

"I-I mean, they ring a bell, I think—"

"Remember what makes them so remarkable? They can read a person like a book, taking in all their tiny mannerisms and assembling them like a puzzle, deciphering everything about where they've been, what they like, and who they are. I ain't so good, though I hope one day to be—"

"Read more of them dime novels and you'll surely believe you are…" whispered Scarface to Clementine.

"—but one thing I can do, I don't know how, but I can sniff out a lie as easily as determining the difference between an Englishman and Chinaman. So I know your name ain't Leonard Mercier. So Imma give you another try: give it to me true or else none of you are leaving this room alive."

Lenny felt his lungs compress and turn into rock, and standing became a challenge. He heard Clementine and Scarface's gun's cock behind him. He thought carefully and quickly for a good answer. The warden rubbed his stubbly clean-shaven chin and goggled thoughtfully at him with alert brown, almost (appropriately) black eyes. "Well, I-I mean, technically, you're right, sir. No one calls me Leonard, but it's my name. I usually prefer Lenny."

"Oh," said the warden, relaxing, slouching back into his chair. "Guess my power is getting too sharp." Lenny sighed through his nose. "But that doesn't mean you're outta the woods. Are you here as part of an elaborate scheme to break someone out of prison?"

"No sir, not at all. We are only here because our boat stranded us here." For the first time in his life, Lenny thanked God for the truth. Maybe Swanson had a point with all that "the truth shall set you free" jargon. "We just want a boat so we can head back to the mainland."

"Hmm… what did you say your associates' names were again?" Sherlock's brown eyes locked onto their target again.

Lenny looked back, vainly hoping Clementine and Scarface had left the room so he could reveal their real names. They hadn't. Maybe I could… I never mentioned Charles' name, but I did call Javier Miguel. Why did I do that?! If they didn't recognize us at first glance, our names weren't gonna spell it out! Maybe they didn't hear…?

Lenny's mind was spiraling a mile a minute like the most well-oiled machine you've ever seen. Wilkinson and Holmes would've been proud. "Uh, our associate… goes by Tacititus Kilgore, and we work for him."

"No, your associates, not your boss—"

"He's Dutch. Now he's trying to make a fortune in this country." Not technically a lie. He let that sink in, planning out his next innuendo as he scanned the warden's desk for information, something, anything to distract him, change the subject. The font on many papers forming the foundation of the hill was too minuscule to see, and the ones that were weren't remarkably provocative. There was a cigarette card of Robin Koninsky (it seemed dry so Lenny didn't think it was being used for what he imagined), a model of the Statue of Liberty, golden and beautiful as ever, and some picture frame that had been knocked on its face, rendering it unreadable.

"Dutch, eh? So what's the company? Fishing? Cheese production?"

"Oh, I wouldn't call it a company… it's… oh it might sound a mite pretentious, but it's really more of a family." Another successfully dodged question. "Do we have your permission to leave, now? I don't want to rush you, but I would like to see a Miss Koninsky tonight." Another half-truth. "Damn boat crash has eaten enough of my time."

"Miss Koninsky?" His eyes lit up. It was working. "Robin Koninsky? Ah, you a fan?"

"Oh, I don't know if I could say that… my affection for her is so recent. I'll just say she is a very pretty lady."

"Yeah… my daughter adores her. Wish I could take her more, but y'know… ticket prices being what they are…"

"Really?" Lenny asked, genuinely curious as he wormed his way past the seated figure, trying to discreetly catch a peak at the photo in the felled picture frame. "Warden's top-paying salary here, ain't it?"

"Yeah, well…" He cleared his throat, sitting up, causing Lenny's hand to jump back from the frame to behind his thigh. "Invested a lot in my brother's company. We're trying to buy more stock, get more control." Lenny inched closer, reaching his hand out… "Some goddamn fatcat has his claws deep in it, bought most of the stock." The warden disconcertedly grabbed a piece of paper from his left, scaring Lenny's hand away, not realizing it was the wrong pile he chose from. "My brother's company, and this decrepit sack of shit owns him. I tell you, I miss the days when men of this country could make a goddamn living."

"I hear that," Lenny agreed, just an idea assembled. "As does my boss. That's what he's all about. You asked what business we're in? Well, we dabble in a lot. But what remains the same is our core principle: we stand firmly with the small businessman."

"Really?"

"Yes. He is repelled by what's goin' on right now—fat carpetbagger bastards sneakin' in like the plague and just eatin', eatin', eatin' till there's nothin' left but them. Makes him sick."

"Me too. They have that in the Netherlands?"

"Oh, I wouldn't know. Never been. But I imagine." At last, he flicked the frame up and captured a good look at it: the warden stood with another man of similar age, most likely the brother he mentioned before. They were smiling, proudly pointing to the wooden sign reading 'Jameson Mining and Coal Company'

"How did you come to be washed up on my island?" the warden asked, and Lenny jumped back, letting go of the picture. He sighed when the man made no motion he'd noticed.

"Oh, well it was a riverboat, out on a night with hellish storms and winds. You know how it is."

The interest and liveliness of the warden's black eyes vanished instantly with a heavy sigh. "That's not an answer. And I think you know that? Now that I think of it, many of your answers seem either brief or reticent. Are you trying to hide something, Lenny?"

"W—no, no sir." He lifted his hands up to show he meant it. It did nothing to assuage the predatory concentration the warden was giving off, not blinking, not moving a muscle.

"Then please recount the entirety of last night that led you to comin' here. Leave nothing out, don't you dare fret on time, I've got nowhere to be. And until I say so, neither do you."

"Y-yes sir."

"Now talk."

Yes sir… but… um, well excuse me for answering a question with a question—it ought to be a sin, I know— but… what's your name? I'm realizing I don't know it."

"My name?" Those black eyes were as steely and aloof as ever, but the agape mouth revealing the jagged teeth revealed his frustration. "Are you toying with me, boy?"

"No sir, not at all."

"Then why does it matter? I am the warden, you are a potential prisoner; that is all. Would it matter any more if my Christian name was Adam or Robin Koninsky's Plump Tits?"

"No sir… just figured if we were exchanging truths…"

"... Warden Jameson. That's all you need to know."
"Thank you, sir. I'm glad to have something to call you now. So, you want my story? It all began—wait… Jameson?"

"Don't try to weasel your way out of this line of questioning like some greasy lawyer, you—"

"As in… Archibald Jameson? The coal induistrialist?"

"That's my brother. What game are you playing?"

Then Lenny began to laugh, a merry one, as if he was reunited with some dear childhood playmate.

"Oh my God!" he croaked, barely able to contain the laughter. He turned to the ceiling, addressing a higher power. "Lord! You work in evil ways! I never knew you to have such a viscous sense of humor!"

The warden jumped to his feet, towering above Lenny—he was far taller than he seemed sitting down. "If you don't tell me what you're gettin' at in the next three seconds, I swear I'll—"

"You're the reason why we're here! Tacitus Kilgore has been investing in certain… timely goods and it has backfired somewhat. Word of advice, do not invest in buffalo pelt. He is keen to buy into more necessity goods—timber and oil… and coal."

It was an obvious lie, and those black eyes picked it up in an instant, but they stalled in response before retorting. "That's… not—"

"We'd love to meet with your brother on a more official basis. We have got a lot of money and are incredibly interested in your company—our visit to Saint Denis has enlightened us with the exacerbated demand for such raw materials, and inspired us to invest heavily in them."

And then those black eyes flashed with green lust and Lenny knew he'd won.

"That… sounds lovely. We really ought to. When are you available?"

Tell people what they want to hear, and you control the truth. Hosea's first lesson.

"I'll have to check Mr. Kilgore's itinerary, but as soon as possible."

"Terrific! Terrific!" He took a long pause, as if unsure of what to do next. "Well, uh… let's get you a boat outta here!"

They shared a cheeky laugh, each believing he'd gotten exactly what he wanted. That was the art of compromise. Make your rival believe he is getting the better deal. Hosea's second lesson.

"Oh, Mr. Jameson?" Lenny asked, innocently.

"Yes?"

"I do have to request one thing: since we may be investing heavily in your company, the fee feels like gouging, so might I ask you to ask your guards to return what they confiscated?"

"What? What are you talking about? What fee?"

"The ticket fee to the warden's office? They assured me it was quite common."

"Did they now?" the warden growled between gritted teeth, turning his doll's eyes to Clementine and Scarface, who seemed to shrivel to the size of children. "Well, I'm so terribly sorry about that, and I assure you, they will be returning what is yours now."

And so they did, rushing over and emptying their pockets as fast they could, provoking Javier to a smug smile. Lenny could've sworn he saw some grizzled flecks in Clementine's signature mustache.

"Thank you, sir," he said to Jameson, not lying this time. "You have been a gentleman and a friend. I look forward to possibly conducting business with you in the future."

"As do I."

And they shook on it. The green glint in the warden's eye was blinding.

And thus begins Act Two.

Little bit of Glengarry Glen Ross here, hope you enjoyed that aspect-I always find it fun when characters have to create good cover stories on the spot. Of course, Charles didn't have a lot to add on that regard...

Anyway, tune in next time to see what the rest of the gang's next move is.