2017-03-21: The Art of the Swindle
- Cutscene: The Art of the Swindle
- Cast:Cassidy Cain
- Where: Adlehyde, Forest Hills
- Date: March 21, 2017
- Summary: Picking up from whatever she found in the local parish, Cassidy Cain sets up her next pieces on a new chessboard, which involves faked injuries, false identities and a possible train heist. While all the information she has passed to Lenny Monroe's band of train thieves is legitimate, to 'Long Con' Cassidy, there's always a game within the game.
ADLEHYDE
TWO WEEKS AGO
For all of the early morning hubbub filtering past her half-open window, it was the slide of cardboard underneath her door that roused her from a deep sleep, a single, gold-flecked eye cracking open and watching its slow, deliberate traverse to the space just before the worn wooden appendage. Scrubbing a hand over one side of her face, she groggily toppled over the side of her bed, crawling on her hands and knees, blurry images attempting to find their corresponding shapes in surroundings well-remembered were it not for the cotton haze of a hangover filling her brain; the hotel had been her home in Adlehyde for days, and she wasn't so unobservant as to not know its every crack and crevice by now.
Sliding flat on her front with the white cotton of her rumpled shirt dragging across, she groaned as she slowly rolled on her back, fingers picking the envelope off the floor and tearing it open. Fishing out several sheets of paper, the small folded bird at the corner bore a note:
C,
Got what I could based on what you sent me about Deacon Wainwright. I trust this makes us square.
Talked to E. He'll give you a ride from the rally point.
Hope you know what you're doing.
-- D
She knew Darren Dove well enough to know what the last sentence really meant. What you're doing is bloody suicidal and I can't actually say that on paper, but better men than me have tried to convince you not to be so reckless and failed miserably, so godspeed and if things go south, never contact me again. She punctuated the implied message with a roll of her eyes to the ceiling and sighed, though despite herself, a faint smile hooked upwards on the corner of her mouth.
It was a truth as certain as the universe's existence that Cassidy Cain could never resist the long shot, the lure of impossible odds. Flicking the folded bird sideways, she scanned the first page - what appeared to be a very detailed drawing. He had aspirations before to be an artist, once, and with his photographic memory, he could have definitely been something. But as always, like most of her other contacts, Fate and Fortune had other plans for him.
"Huh. Pretty," she mused, setting the drawing aside before looking at the next page; a list of items and the corresponding value of those items in a separate column, as well as a business card of an auction house in Hilton, a city she knew quite well. Brows lifted at the descriptions and the amount of gella involved; some of the prices were downright exorbitant. Then again, if they were going to Lacour, she wasn't surprised. The kingdom's citizens could afford those luxuries better than in some of the other nations in Ignas.
The last page was a map, a line drawn in red ink along a specific set of train tracks. The faint smile on her lips grew a touch wider.
Pressing the papers against her chest, she closed her eyes, though it wasn't to go back to sleep. She needed to think, and with the fog of the last night's revels still lying thick in her brain, that endeavor was particularly challenging.
But this latest gambit was already tricky; what was one more to conquer?
~*~
THE TOWN OF FOREST HILLS
SEVERAL MILES OUTSIDE OF ADLEHYDE
A FEW DAYS AGO
While the tavern in the upper floors of the building emitted the usual strains of racuous activity, the cooler, stone-wreathed confines below spoke of a different atmosphere entirely. Smoke from a few lit cigarettes curled like white-gray serpents against the ceiling as the metallic pings of gella hit the green felt on the private dealer's table the owners set up in the basement, mingling with the sourer notes of stale beer, dusty leather and sweat. Games of skill, poker today, often provided a calmer backdrop to the sort of business in which she was about to engage in just a few moments.
Then again, all the calm in the world wouldn't be able to suppress the thrill braiding down her spine, hitting the small of her back and surging white-hot through her veins. She hadn't missed the stares directed at the cast that bound her broken left arm, held protectively and immobile against her body in a sling; wandering into a literal den of thieves with an obvious sign of injury was practically the landlubbing equivalent of bleeding in open ocean water while surrounded by sharks. It was foolhardy, something even a fledgling operator wouldn't do. And yet, here she was, placing her bets and playing her hand like any consummate professional who hadn't just made a very terrible mistake.
The leader of the gang was a dark-haired man with a flinty stare and a demeanor to match; he mostly plied his trade in the Badlands, but Lenny 'Squints' Monroe had organizational ties in Adlehyde and in certain days of the month, he would be here, catching up with childhood friends. True to his moniker, he squinted at her suspiciously; she smiled at him blithely in response as she dug into her jacket and tossed a heavy pouch in the middle of the table. A few coins rolled free from the near-bursting seam.
Greed thickened the humid air in the basement. Squints reached forward with a knife, using the point to undo the tie holding the flap in place, angling his head to peer inside its confines.
"There's about fifty large in there," Cassidy supplied, oh-so-helpfully. "The rest of your compensation, you can pries from the take. Shouldnae be a problem with boys of your skill and reputation, ay?" A brow lifted slowly over a single eye. "Verra reliable word says train robberies are sommat of an expertise of yours."
"Word's correct," Squint grunted, eyeballing her from across the table. "So lemme get this straight. You'll supply us everything we need to know. We hit the train. We take the goods....and then what? What's in it for you?"
"Oh, it's nae anything big," the blonde replied casually. "There's a necklace in a case this big and this wide." She described its dimensions with an airy wave of her uninjured hand. "Got Montgomery & Hart Company's stamps all over the leather. You know how a woman gets, lads. Sometimes, she cannae resist the pretty, shiny things."
"Yeah." Squints narrowed his eyes. "But you ain't exactly no ordinary woman either, ain't you?"
With a sudden and violent shove, his boot came up from underneath the table, driving savagely against the legs of her chair. The sound of shattering wood heralded her unceremonious collapse on the ground, her back hitting stone and breath leaving her lungs in a sudden rush. The rest of Squints' cadre of ne'erdowells moved, guns cocked and loaded for bear, aimed at her in all directions as glade-green eyes flicked from right to left. Her unbound hand slowly lifted in a gesture of surrender.
Lenny loomed over her, a deceptively strong hand reaching down to grab her by the collar, bodily hoisting her up from the fallen chair. His split lip curled faintly in a sneer.
"I ain't in the mood to be swindled today. I know who y'are, 'Long Con' Cassidy Cain."
Crap.
"Well," she said, in spite of the sudden difficulty in speaking with her collar twisted as it was. "I hate tae be a /disappointment/ tae my reputation but this isnae a swindle. Otherwise I wouldnae be shelling out so much gella on the spot and crawling over here as helpless as a wee bairn."
Squints' dark-eyed stare threatened to burn holes into her skull. Cassidy sighed.
"Look," she began. "Dinnae get me wrong, lads. I was prepared tae take from the train myself, y'ken? I had all the information, the route scouted, the method all planned out. /Unfortunately/, I got in a bit of an accident with a crazy bloody bartender in Adlehyde who can /throw whole bar counters/ at people and unfortunately, me and a coupla other daft idiots were in the way." She glances down at her arm in emphasis. "As a result, my arm is useless for a coupla more weeks and this train is on a verra tight schedule, y'ken? It needs tae be in Hilton for some swanky auction soiree. Dinnae know about you, lads, but as experts in train robberies, I think you all agree that chances of surviving are much better when you've got all four functioning limbs in the event of deadly shootouts and sudden escapes, and rest assured I'm /verra/ attached tae my life enough not tae take the chance. Hence, as painful as this is tae my pride, from one master thief tae another, I'm afraid I have tae outsource this time around."
At the man's skeptical face, she lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "If you dinnae believe me, you can always send a coupla your boys tae Adlehyde," she suggested. "Look at the bar and the psychotically strong man they hired for a bartender, and then the clinic and the doctor who set my bone. An entire room full of people saw me get crushed, lads. Hurled right through the wall and /outside/, if you can believe it. And while you're at it, verify what I said about the train and the auction, too. Why the fook not? The take is legitimate. And all I want outta alla your trouble is one pretty little bauble."
Squints frowned. His jaw worked quietly and slowly, surely, he let go of the woman's collar.
"Give us a couple of days to do all of that verifyin'," he grunted, pointing a finger right into her chest. "And while we do that, you're stayin' right in town, Cain." He grinned, showing off a couple of his gold-plated teeth. "Consider yourself human collateral for this new contract you're proposin'."
"Fine." Cassidy straightened her collar, and reached out to pick up her hat from the floor, settling it down on the pale-gold luster of her hair. Her easy, languid smile returned, quirking upwards on the corners.
"I've got nothing tae hide, lads. Feel free tae poke and prod at my information as you please. You'll figure out pretty quickly that I'm telling nothing but the absolute truth this time around. I /really/ want that necklace, y'ken." She inclined her head at Squints. "And if you're so familiar with my reputation, certainly you'd know how I get when there's something I absolutely want, ay?"
The dark-eyed man gave her a long look, before snorting once, waving a hand in a wordless command to have Cassidy escorted back to the upper levels of the tavern.
"Yeah, well. We'll see about that."
~*~
ADLEHYDE
NOW
"You're right on time, Miss Hux-Stratton," Richard Martin, master jeweler, greeted her as she swept into the room, red-gold hair piled in a loose coiffure at the back of her head. "I /just/ finished the piece you commissioned and I assure you, you won't have any complaints."
Amelia Hux-Stratton folded her parasol, her turn forcing the bustle of her voluminous skirt to drag the hem against the dark hardwood floor. Green, gold-flecked eyes peered at him from along a bold, almost too-sharp nose. Coupled with the slight upward tilt of her chin, she was the very picture of a well-to-do tourist-socialite, complete with an accent that promised a life that found its beginnings in some far off place. If anything, it mirrored her own actual history, somewhat, hence it was a skin that she found no difficulty slipping into, especially now that it was necessary.
Light strides on expensive boots took her towards the counter, where an elaborate necklace was mounted on a velvet-lined headless bust. The way light refracted over the red gem's facets made her gasp appreciatively, fingers resting lightly on a chest that sits almost too proudly against a low sweetheart neckline all the more accentuated by the presence of a corset.
"It is absolutely /stunning/, Mr. Martin," she breathed. "Why, it looks /exactly/ like the drawing ah showed you." She managed to dredge up a few tears, lifting a lacy handkerchief to dab lightly on the corner of her eyes. "Oh, if my dear, beloved momma were still alive, she would be oh-so-delah-ted to see one of her designs come to lahf so /expertly/." Her expression held nothing but heartfelt gratitude as she turned that glistening at the master jeweler.
She reached out with gloved, elegant fingers to take the man's hand, resting her other set on top of it, reminded by the sight of her perfectly functional limb to throw the discarded arm-cast she wore most of the week to the fire once she got back to her hotel room. "You are an absolute credit to your profession," she continued on, seemingly oblivious to the man's growing blush. "I can't even tell that's not a real ruby."
"Well, that's the point, isn't it?" Richard laughed, his free hand coming up to rub absently at the back of his neck. "It's simply treated glass, but unless you're an expert like me, you can't tell the difference just by looking at it. It looks very much like the real thing, if I do say so myself."
"Oh, yes." Underneath her tears was a glint of feminine, almost-feline satisfaction.
"That it does, Mr. Martin. That it does."