Red West II.

Chapter nineteen - Alliances

The pen created a faint creaking noise as the man's hand holding it firmly wrote the precise numbers in the accounting book. The detailed records included incomes and expenses of the quarry, though they were a bit altered, of course. The real book, which mentioned all their profits, was safely locked under the false bottom of the table's only drawer and nobody, except its owner, knew where to find the key for this hideout. It was a good precaution, just in case some sneaky officer from the government remembered to fulfil his duties from time to time, and arrived for the inspection.

The manager of the sandstone quarry in Laporte was almost finished with his work for that day, when the hard stomping was heard on the stairs and shortly after the door of his office was flung wide open, making way for a furious gunman. The stack of banknotes flew through the air and spread all over the table, half-covering the accounting book, not allowing the manager to finish the last calculations.

"This is not enough!" Grenet literally spat the words out.

Cameron put the pen aside slowly and raised his eyes to the upset gunslinger. He gave the ruddy face a long look; it seemed to him that during the past week, Math Grenet behaved more explosively than usually. He was always quick-tempered, but such a lack of control over own emotions was unusual even for the former first gunman of Raynold Karnaka. And Cameron despised such people.

Anyway, it made him wonder what caused that constant anger and he was quite sure it was the failure of their search party – they were not able to locate Kamenashi yet. Cameron was not satisfied with that himself, but to express it so openly was deeply below his level. Not to mention there was other business to deal with. That youngster would show up again in the end, and the former servant had learned how to wait for something patiently a long time ago.

"Your share is still the same," Cameron informed the grumpy man stiffly. "You know very well, that our profit wasn't so big this time."

"And how am I supposed to pay the men from that?" Grenet continued complaining, and pointed at the notes with his finger.

"There's more than enough for that. In case you skip some visits in brothels, of course," Cameron observed the reddening face of his companion unmoved. He didn't care about how Grenet handled his cash; the gunman could pay to Danny double for what the boy was willing to do for him, or to burn the money in the fireplace, for all he cared. Unless it caused troubles with their subordinates or quarry workers, Cameron was willing to accept that.

The angry gunman was fuming for a while, before he sat down on the chair opposite to him and lit up a cigarette. Cameron watched his action rather disgustedly and carefully closed the book to avoid its damage from the hot ashes.

"We should replace more cargos then," Grenet hissed his oh-so-much-clever proposal.

Cameron suppressed an annoyed sigh; it wasn't the first time they discussed the topic.

"Not possible. If we want to avoid Tabor realizing something strange is happening with his deliveries to Wyoming, we need to keep the number low. We've already talked about this."

"Then what about some deduction from the mint master's share?" his companion insisted.

Cameron almost smirked in a gleeful reaction: "Try to suggest that to him, I doubt that he would agree."

More precisely, he was sure that the mentioned man would have sent his couple of crazy dogs after Grenet, if the gunman dared to come up with such a proposal. It was more than risky to break the law related to the precious metals processing, to cheat the officers and create more coins in secret for personal profit. Such a crime was heavily punished, and they were lucky the master was willing to cooperate, for quite a prize of course.