Of course she didn't even respond to that. Noah tried to pace up and down but he was too sore. "Not yer business!" he shouted. "And I didn't make no girl pregnant!"

"Should I hear it from you?" Anita said lightly. "From Crane? Shall I be checking with the houses of ill repute for word of my dear son's deeds?"

She used to go house-to-house looking for Harry, back when she still cared.

"Fine! Just shut your gob about it!" Noah said. "Alice Ward, okay!"

Which meant the widower, Benjamin Ward. Her eyes narrowed.

"I see..."

Once upon a time, she'd heard he fancied her - but Harry had sounded like he was going places. Promise and promises; and shallowly, better-looking and smelling too.

Ward's wife was actually dead, so she figured she still got the better deal.

"Do you love Alice?"

"No!" He sort of did. He didn't know. But he would never tell his mother. "She was drunk, so I was just foolin' around with her." he said instead, with bitterness in his voice.

There was a pause. And then...

"Then let's gut Benjamin like a fish."

His face turned from angry to confused. "What?"

"Feed him to the fish," Anita continued on.

"Cut him into sausage!" added a drunk in the other cell.

Anita squinted with brief confusion, but then nodded sagely.

"Waste not, want not."

More likely, she was going to skip the wanting and get straight to the wasted.

Noah moved back to the bars, held them and leaned his forehead against them. Could someone adopt his parents please? "Maybe if you shut up, this night won't last as long."