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always doing laundry. A gray towel hung from a wash line strung between one of the houses and a makeshift pole made out of a copper pipe. As they passed Robi reached out casually and pulled it from the line.
    “Here,” she said, passing it to John and pointing to a foul looking water pump beside the rear entrance of a warehouse. “Wash your face and try to do something with your hair.”
    As John moved to obey, Robi continued casually walking up the street, appraising the various laundry for size as she went. She slipped a drab gray dress off one line as she passed and quickly slipped it over her head, covering her tan shirt and pants. To this, she added a worn-out blue corset, tying it loosely in the back, just enough to make the dress more form-fitting. She still didn’t have any shoes, but the dress was long enough to hide her bare feet.
    Satisfied with her attire, she snatched a few more things for John and turned back the way she’d come. She found John naked to the waist and dripping in front of the public pump. The water smelled of sulfur but John had dutifully used it to slick back his unruly hair.
    “Much better,” Robi said.
    He looked up at her, water still dripping from his hair, and just stared.
    “I’m glad you like it,” she said, turning so he could see her stolen clothes. “Lace me in a bit tighter.”
    John pulled the laces of the corset tighter and tied them off.
    “Here,” she said, pressing the bundle of clothes she had stolen for him into his hands. “Put these on.”
    John slipped into the shirt, buttoning it quickly, then looked around as he undid his belt. Robi turned her back, willing her cheeks not to blush. A few minutes later he stepped out in front of her. The clothes were meager enough, a threadbare green shirt and brown waistcoat that almost matched the pants. In more civilized clothes he might even be handsome.
    “You’ll do,” she said. “Now come with me.”
    “Where are we going?”
    “Shopping,” Robi said with a grin.
    “We’re wanted by the law and don’t have any money.”
    Robi sighed. John wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes by himself.
    “Silly boy,” she said, patting him on the face as if he were a child. “That’s the first thing on my list.”
    A shadow of irritation crossed his face but he didn’t respond.
    Money would be easy enough to come by. Wallets could be lifted and needed items pilfered. Still, it wouldn’t be enough to get rid of John. If she was going to make good on her promise to help him find the tattooed woman, she was going to need more.
    “How do we find the woman who shot me?”
    One problem at a time , the old man whispered in her head.
    Robi fixed John with her eyes and smiled, an expression her father had drummed into her to soften up males. Based on John’s soft-brained expression, it worked.
    “I thought we might have better luck finding her if we showed her picture around.”
    John’s expression soured.
    “I don’t have a picture of her,” he said. “I never met her before.”
    “I know someone who can help with that,” Robi said, hoping she could fulfill on that promise. “But there is something very important we have to do first.”
    “What?”
    “Eat,” she said. “The last decent meal I had was Thursday.”

Chapter 7
    The Tintype
    John sat at a small, dingy table in a small, dingy restaurant that catered to the laborers of warehouse row. Across from him, Robi sat, busily finishing off her second plate of some grayish stew that bore no discernible resemblance to actual food. The windows of the restaurant were old, warped, and coated with a pervasive layer of grime that rendered the outside world in a gray and brown haze. To take his mind off what Robi was eating, John scrubbed a small patch of the window clean with his sleeve so he could watch the tradesmen and teamsters in the street outside. A row of steam wagons sat in front of a granary across the street. Each of the boxy, six-wheeled contraptions had