Shady Meeting

[Wraith]

The fact that Script had helped the Pearson siblings improve their communication skills was really not good news for anyone else in the lodging house.

Wraith stood deep in the shadows, as always, waiting to see if this little set-up, which even she thought was kind of over the top, was going to succeed. Would an undercover cop really walk into a dark basement because some random eight-year-old newsboy, in exchange for a piece of candy, had run and told him he was wanted down there? Goblin said he would. He said Risk was too curious not to come, and he was standing by the stairs looking totally confident. Well, they would find out soon enough.

[Risk]

Maybe this was a bad idea thought Risk as he made his way towards the basement. He knew Goblin and Wraith wanted to talk to him about something but he couldn't possible figure out what it could be. He held up his end of the bargain and got Goblin out of the Refuge. He'd been lucky that he still had friends in the place to set it up... so what would these two need from him this time?

Once he saw Goblin by the stairs, he paused and asked, "Why are we meeting in the basement again?"

[Wraith]

"'Cause no one ever comes down here." He looked over his shoulder. "Clara, can you please not do that? It's creepy."

Wraith sighed and came out to stand beside her brother, arms crossed. Their postures were identical, and it really brought out their matching eyes...complete with the devious gleam. "We want to help you solve your problem," she announced. "Seeing as it's our problem, too. Now that you know about Ershey..."

"...you can't turn us in, so you need some kind of alternate story, and we've got a bit of experience making shady plans. And there's something else I wanted to ask you about," Goblin added, but Wraith gave him a look that said that could wait.

[Risk]

Risk stared at the pair. He knew gossip got around but he didn't know it was this bad. He'd only found out about everything last night and these two were already on his tail. Surprisingly, he was actually impressed. Maybe they should be working undercover and get paid for it.

"What do you want?" he asked hesitantly.

[Wraith]

((Oh my gods, they would be fantastic undercover cops. I just saw their futures unfold before my eyes.))

"We want to brainstorm," Wraith said simply. "Figure out something you can tell your boss."

"Any ideas yet?" Goblin asked.

"Sebastian has about twelve," Wraith said proudly.

"Nothing solid yet..."

Wraith shrugged and looked at Risk expectantly. She was just glad he hadn't asked where they'd gotten all this information.

[Risk]

((OMG THEY TOTALLY SHOULD BE.))

"Alright... well, let's hear it," said Risk, actually quite amused to see what they would come up with. He crossed his arms and leaned on the wall, waiting to hear their propositions.

[Wraith]

Goblin sat down on an overturned barrel, spoiling their matching poses, and Wraith, somewhat disappointed, sat by his feet and let him do the talking. "Well, they're already pretty sure a newsie was involved. Which is probably my fault..."

"They couldn't pin it on you," Wraith said quickly.

"Because I didn't have the gun," he confirmed. "But they found plenty of old charges to pin on me, and they know I was there. They probably think I was a lookout or something, which is more-or-less true. But they're apparently done with me..." He gave Risk a thoughtful look. "...so what they really need is whoever was in that alley.

"The easiest thing would be to frame someone who isn't actually around to care. Find out the names of a few newsies who've left the lodging house since the murder. Come up with all kinds of suspicious details about 'em, and the bulls'll be off our trail. Of course, there's always the chance they'll actually catch our fake suspects."

"How is that our problem?" Wraith asked blankly.

Goblin just rolled his eyes at her. "So then I thought maybe you could pin it on Brookies or Five Pointers--people the cops wouldn't dare touch. The types who have enough money and power that the police will look the other way no matter what they do...um, you do you know a lot of you guys are completely corrupt, right?"

Wraith snorted. She would've liked to add a thing or two about corrupt cops, but she wasn't about to put Risk on the trail of those other two murders.

"Or," Goblin went on cheerfully, "you could blame Ericson. Say he was mixed up in something shady, which is obviously true anyway, and he got in over his head. Maybe it was even an inside job--his own thugs were the ones who shot him and somehow set us up. But I'm assuming that might not go over too well in the department.

"That's just a start, of course," Goblin added dismissively. He was obviously able and very much willing to sit around in the basement all night coming up with plans.

((Longest. Post. Ever.))

[Risk]

((Epiccccc.))

Risk blinked, amazed at how much thought Goblin put into their options. It wasn't anything surprising since Risk already toyed with the idea of blaming it on someone else. He didn't have any problem with that as long as he had the evidence to back it up... and that's where he hit a roadblock.

"Maybe not Five Points," said Risk, remembering Macbeth. The last thing he wanted to do was bring her into this mess. "Let's go for Brookl -- wait, what do the two of you want, anyway? Why are you helping me so much?"

[Wraith]

Goblin looked at him as if he couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't want to help come up with complicated criminal schemes. "Because it's fun!"

It was Wraith's turn to roll her eyes. "Because we want this over with, obviously. It's not like we can just make you disappear, because that would only make them more suspicious--"

"And because that's not something we just do on a regular basis," Goblin added hastily, rather appalled by the bloodthirsty places his sister's mind went.

"--so we have to make the whole investigation disappear," Wraith finished. "And that's exactly what you're trying to do, so why shouldn't we help?" She hesitated, then sighed. "And also, Goblin wants your help with something."

"More like advice," Goblin said.

"So...here we are. Which Brookies were you thinking, exactly?"

((I kind of really love them.))

[Risk]

"Advice?" repeated Risk, completely ignoring Wraith's question. "What advice could you possibly need? It looks like you've got a lot of things figured out without my help."

((Me too. )

[Wraith]

Wraith looked at Goblin. He sighed and shrugged at her, then looked at Risk. "How much do you know about the Refuge?"

[Risk]

"Enough to obviously get you out," shrugged Risk. "Someone in there you're trying to get out?"

[Wraith]

"Not exactly." Goblin hesitated for a moment, and it was the first time he'd lost an ounce of confidence since this little meeting began. "You remember the strike a few months ago? How the governor got word about the Refuge, and they fired Snyder and released a few of the kids, and they were going to shut the whole place down? Do you know why they didn't?"

[Risk]

"I remember something about just letting enough kids out to get the newsies riled up," shrugged Risk. He vaguely remembered the strike but heard enough about it to know what happened. "Then again, other cops said they kept it 'cause some of the kids weren't even worth letting out... someone there a friend of yours?"

[Wraith]

"Some of them, others I'd love to never see again," Goblin said. "That's not the point. It didn't get shut down because it's shady. The whole thing, the people who run it, the courts who send kids to it, and the people behind the scenes, I don't even know..." He closed his eyes for a second. Deep breaths. He'd put in a lot of long hours. "I don't even know half of it yet, but there's so much corruption keeping that place open that I can't figure out where to start. And I really hope you don't know what goes on in there."

Because if Risk had anything whatsoever to do with the massive hell or the equally massive cover-up that were the Refuge, Goblin would probably take a leaf from his sister's book and kill him then and there.