I Went Down (NaNoWriMo Read-Along)

30 Dapper Jack

One of Rupert’s runners came to the Princess Carylla in the mid-morning. He was not allowed on board, for it was obvious he had no money to gamble and no one recognized him as anything useful to the interests of Jimmy Primrose. He would not go away, however, but insisted that he needed to see Dapper Jack. Eventually one of the men already on his way out to the boat brought the word to Dapper Jack. “If he ain’t got anything, you could at least catch him and teach him not to come bothering grown men of business,” the man said with a low growl. One of his knees had been smashed in a fight many years earlier and it was clear he missed the ability to catch street urchins and box them about the ears.

Dapper Jack stepped into the tender and let the burly crewman row him over to the docks. As they approached the shore, the oarsman shipped the oars long enough to turn and point over his shoulder. “There’s the little brat.”

A few of Jimmy Primrose’s men were standing on the dock, or sitting on the crates near one of the tall pilings. Perched on the top of the piling was a small figure swinging its feet and exchanging curses with the men.

Dapper Jack shinned up the ladder while the oarsman secured the tender to a lower portion of the piling. The boy was detailing the probable ancestry of one of Jimmy Primrose’s guards. “And to get a nose like you got, yer grandma must’ve buggered a mud oyster, which ain’t even possible ‘cept for you’re living proof!”

“Come down here and I’ll fix your nose!” yelled his interlocutor, a hot-tempered, wiry man called Sinclair. “You bloody little rail rat!”

The boy set his hands on the edge of the piling between his legs and leaned forward. “I ain’t a rail rat! I was born in Delta Mouth. You probably got found under a dock after the trash barge went by.”

The other men were enjoying the exchange and the fury of their companion. Sinclair heard a few snickers and glanced around, looking for someone within reach of his fists. When his eye lit on Jack, he straightened up abruptly. A storm of emotion played out quickly on his face as his anger was compounded by embarrassment. For a minute his flushed face turned almost maroon while the boy on the piling listed other sorts of things that might fall off of a trash barge.

“Mister Dorsane,” Sinclair said finally. “This,” he paused for a long moment, biting his tongue while Dapper Jack worked hard to keep his own face impassive, “this boy claims to have a message for you.”

“I got a timetable,” the boy said.

“May I see it?” Dapper Jack asked.

The boy made a face. “I ain’t coming down while he’s right there.”

“Maybe you should have thought of that before you started your conversation.”

“I didn’t start nothing,” the boy said. “I said I got something for Dapper Jack and he said he got something for me and tried to kick me.”

Sinclair grumbled something under his breath. Jack looked at him and he was silent. “Are you censoring incoming information now, Sinclair?”

The man squirmed a little. “No, Mister Dorsane.”

“Who do you work for?” Dapper Jack asked the boy.

“Mister Rupert,” came the quick reply.

“And who does Mister Rupert work for?”

“Mister Primrose.”

“So, you see, we are all friends, after all.” Dapper Jack flexed his fingers inside his gloves, feeling the tightness of new leather over his knuckles. “It’s important to have all the information, Sinclair, before you start hitting people. How long have you been waiting?” he called to the boy.