Sink or Swim

Chapter Five

Some years back...

"Kath! You all right, sweetheart?"

Katherine grinned, displaying bloody teeth, and tried not to laugh at the sight the two of them must make— herself, sixteen and gangly with it, knuckles split and left eye swollen shut; and Mari, a hundred years old if she was a day, reaching up on her tiptoes to pat her on the head and tilt her chin so she could look at the damage to her face.

"Not to worry, Mari," she said. "I'm still pretty as ever."

Mari rolled her eyes, and Katherine looked up as she heard footsteps clattering down the stairs.

"Ohhhh," Samantha groaned, hurrying to her. "Not another fight?"

"It needed done!" Katherine protested. "He was harassing one of the girls from Jenny's place!"

"And where was she?"

Katherine resisted the urge to look down at the ground and shuffle her feet. Samantha was Mari's daughter, and the madam of this brothel. Though she was now a head and a half taller than her, Sam still had the power to make her feel like a wayward child.

"At Flanigan's Bar," she muttered.

"How many times have I told you to stay out of there?" Samantha asked.

"More than I can count?"

"I know you like the bars, and I know you like the fights—don't give me that look, sit down."

Katherine sat. "But he was—"

"And don't tell me that whoever you hit had it coming, because I'm certain he did—but one of these days you're going to come across someone who can hit harder. You're stronger than you have any right to be but these are full-grown men who've been in more fights than you have," she said, kneeling down in front of her. "Sooner or later you're going to lose the element of surprise that's gotten you through so far. And one of them will kill you. You understand?"

Her first instinct was to make a joke, but the solemnity and worry on Samantha's face stopped her. "Okay. I understand."

"Kath!" Hannah exclaimed, popping out from the kitchen. "Who'd you get this time?"

"Don't encourage her," Samantha said, and Hannah stuck her tongue out at her and plopped down in the chair next to Katherine.

"Some blighter who was getting handsy with one of Jenny's girls," Katherine said.

"Good," Hannah said. "Wish I could put the fear of God into those who need it. You know I had a client yesterday tried to wriggle out of payment? Said I was asking for the last of his money and judging from all the decorations in my room, I didn't need it anyway."

"Did he pay?"

"No more than the half he'd paid up front," Hannah said. "Don't worry, Kath, I told the other girls who he was; he won't be given any more business here. Alerted Jenny's and Rachel's places as well."

"Still!" Kath complained. "Hannah, you should've told me right away!"

"Why, so you could hold him upside down and empty his pockets?"

"Something like that...Sam!" she exclaimed. "That's what I could do! I could be security here!"

"Katherine."

"I could do it," she said stubbornly. "You know as well as I that the girls get an occasional customer who needs his head introduced to the nearest wall."

"That doesn't mean you need to—" She looked at the expression on Katherine's face and sighed. "On one condition. You stop going to the bars."

"Agreed," Katherine said, grinning as she stuck out her hand. Samantha shook it, and then made a shooing motion with her hands. "All right, now go get cleaned up."