Page 24 of Ruthless Riches
I nodded. “So you’d rather do that than take the risk of spending it all on a ticket.”
“Exactly. I could get a ticket and go over to Seattle, but then I’d have nothing on me. Nowhere to go that’s familiar. No idea when I’d eat again. No idea if there are even any jobs over there that I could get. So I stay.” He scratched his head and sighed. “That’s how it goes when you’re stuck in a situation like this. You keep thinking you can get out one day, maybe, but you just end up exactly where you started. It’s like that for most of the others out here, too.”
“How many others are there?” Nate asked.
Brian frowned and twisted his lips. “Hm. No way to know, really, but I’d guess a thousand. Maybe more.”
“Are they like you?” I asked. “I mean, do they hang around by themselves, or are there groups?”
“Depends. Some stay in groups for protection and company, but a lot of others are like me and want to be left alone.”
“Why?”
“Trust issues, mostly,” Brian said. “I used to hang out with a group. We’d share food and watch out for each other. But then one night someone stole most of the stuff out of my bag while I was asleep. I figured out that it was one of them, and after that I decided to go off on my own.”
“Oh. So where do you sleep?”
“I’ll usually try one of the shelters to see if I can get a bed for the night. If they’re already full, I’ll go somewhere else,” he said. “That depends on the weather, really. In summer, I head down to the beach and find a pier to sleep under. That way I have some shelter over my head to block out the wind. A lot of the others do the same, or they find a spot in one of the parks.”
“What about winter?” I asked. “Do you ever go to the tunnels?”
“Yeah. A lot of people do. There’s an entrance near the old bus depot on Tenth Avenue,” he replied. “It’s not comfortable in there, and it stinks, but it’s warm.”
“Have you ever heard of a second set of tunnels? One that runs beneath the regular tunnels?”
Brian’s forehead creased. “You mean the Penthouse, or whatever the hell they call it?”
“Yes.”
His jaw tightened. “I’ve heard of it. Don’t know how to get to it, though,” he said. “Even if I did, I wouldn’t go down there if you paid me. Not after all the shit I’ve heard about it.”
“Have you ever met anyone who claims to know where an entrance is?”
He averted his eyes and lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug. “I might have.”
“Could you tell us?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because it sounds like you’re trying to go down there,” he said. “Am I right?”
“Yes,” I said, deciding that honesty was the best policy.
He shook his head. “Trust me. You don’t want to go down there. From what I’ve heard, it’s dangerous as all hell.”
“It wouldn’t be your fault if something happened to us there.”
“It would be if I pushed you in the right direction,” Brian replied, raising a brow.
“Please. Just tell us what you know.”
He settled back against the brick wall, jaw set. “No. It’s for your own good.”
Nate pulled out his wallet and counted out several crisp banknotes. “There’s a hotel two streets down from here,” he said, holding the money out to Brian. “They take cash. They don’t need you to put down any kind of ID, either. You could take this, go there, and spend a few nights in a real bed. All you have to do is guide us to the person—or people—who’ll give us the information we want.”
Brian hesitated as he stared at the cash. I could tell he was mentally calculating everything he could do with several hundred dollars at his disposal.
Finally, he stood up and snatched the money out of Nate’s hand. Then, without a word, he picked up his backpack and walked away.
For a second, I thought he wasn’t going to help us, but then he turned and looked at us over his shoulder, lips curving into a wry smile. “Are you coming?”
