Jack is relieved to hear him say this, but Anderson won’t let it go. “Well, then who was?”
“The same person who went to Skelton, of course,” says Ritchie.
The room is quiet, until Twaits asks the obvious question. “And who was that?”
“You really don’t know?” Ritchie looks almost amused. “I would have thought it was obvious.”
A few of them try to guess.
“Green?” Twaits says doubtfully.
“Perry?” says Anderson, to which Perry shouts, “Hey!”
Ritchie is clearly enjoying himself. “Mr. Gibson, even you cannot figure it out?”
What is Ritchie doing? Now Jack has to pretend they haven’t just talked about this very thing? “I, uh, I couldn’t say.”
Ritchie waits for the room to quiet, then he says, in a voice not much louder than a whisper, “You must promise there will be no retribution. The poor woman has been through enough.”
“Woman?” some of the men repeat to themselves.
“My source is Mrs. Green.”
The whole room takes a collective breath. “Christ,” says Anderson, speaking for everyone.
“She was quite beside herself,” says Ritchie. “It’s only natural that she should want justice for her only child.”
Some of the men shake their heads in sympathy. Others suck on their teeth. But it’s clear, looking around the room, that Ritchie knows what he is doing. No one is going to go after Mrs. Green, not after what she’s been through.
“So, now that we’ve put that sad business to bed,” says Ritchie, “it’s time to look toward the future.”
Jack doesn’t like where this is going.
“Mr. West has very generously agreed to sell the land the theater sits on to the city, which will allow us to bury the dead beneath the ruins.” He waits a moment, to let this information sink in. “And, in exchange, we are prepared to cut you all a deal.”
GILBERT
When Gilbert comes to, hisbrother-in-law’s face is looming over him.
“Cecil?”
“That’s me,” he says, and Gilbert squeezes his eyes closed, then opens them again, to make sure he’s not dreaming.
“You got a nasty bump on the head, but you gonna be all right.”
Gilbert touches the top of his head, and sure enough, there is an ugly gash near his hairline.
Over Cecil’s shoulder, he sees iron grating, and beyond that, the not-quite dawn. “Where am I?” he asks.
“The birdcage,” says Cecil, and Gilbert pulls himself up on his elbows and looks around.
The birdcage is as strange a structure as any in the city; it sits at the northeast end of the market bridge and is shaped like an octagon, with a long parapet that runs around the perimeter. The brick building has iron gratings on three sides and a floor that rises up like an amphitheater so that everyone coming and going on E Street can see exactly who’s been picked up overnight.
“Kemp and his men brought you in here a little while ago, which has got to be some kind of first.”
“You mean, a first officer of the patrol arresting his own slave?”
“Exactly.”
