Free The Styx by Jonathon King

some business type in New York and come down and buy a binder on the sale of a piece of land and then slap away the mosquitoes while the price keeps risin’,” Harris said.
    Harris explained that a binder was a nonrefundable down payment that required the remainder of the cost of the land to be paid within thirty days.
    “They might swat the insects for twenty days, maybe even twenty-eight before they sell it again before the final payment is due. And the profit, m’boy. You ain’t never seen the price of land climb the way it does in Florida.
    “I watched a binder pass through six hands before the last fool got caught holdin’ the bag with no more buyers around. But hell, this is just the beginning of these rascals. That group is goin’ to the end of the line in Miami, and believe me, they’re playin’ three-card Monte with land deeds down there, lad.”
    Byrne filed the information away. It takes money to make money, unless of course you’re a thief or taking advantage of someone else’s cash. Those weren’t hard lessons to learn on the streets of the Lower East Side. They were also lessons he’d watched his brother Danny employ on a regular basis. If there were three of a kind in the business of fleecing someone, maybe they had run across Danny in their travels. He’d find an acceptable time and place to speak again with that group.
    “And what about the gentleman?” Byrne said, wanting the same background on the older man who had eyeballed him.
    Harris tried to straighten his face to give a flat look that was a mighty effort for a rough Irishman.
    “Faustus,” he said. “Stay clear, Byrne. He’ll be tryin’ to recruit you to some unholy religion that’ll lead to trouble that we have no part of and no relation to. Leave that sleepin’ dog lie, hear?”
    Byrne was ordered to again take up his post on Mr. Flagler’s car while they made a short stop at the North Philadelphia station where the Germantown and Chestnut Hill lines merged. Soon enough they crossed the deep running Schuylkill River and merged onto yet another line. Byrne watched the landscape change yet again as they approached the city and caught sight of charred destruction. It became evident that the main rail station had recently been destroyed by fire, and although the tracks had been cleared, there was still the scent of charred and smoldering wood in the air. Byrne coughed and thought of his new sensitivity to clean air and how quickly one could recognize the sullied version.
    Byrne climbed number 90’s outside ladder. From a vantage point over the roof he could see the French Renaissance building of city hall growing in the distance with flags aflutter at several cornices surrounding the spire at its middle where a statue of William Penn stood impossibly high in the sky.
    When the train pulled slowly into Philadelphia’s center city stop at Broad Street, Harris jumped down and gave Byrne a hand signal to do the same. They oversaw the uncoupling of Flagler’s car and its positioning on a side rail where it would sit alone like some elegant museum piece while the smoke and ash and soot of the rest of the rail yard swirled round it.
    Byrne stared wide-eyed at the grand towers of the Masonic Temple across the wide street.
    “The exterior you’re looking at is built of Cape Ann syenite, which takes its name from Syne in Upper Egypt, where it was quarried for monuments by the ancient Egyptians,” a deep voice said. Byrne turned to see the man called Faustus standing just behind him, worrying on a pair of calfskin gloves. “The other sides are of Fox Island granite from the coast of Maine. Each stone, in accordance with Masonic tradition, was cut, squared, marked and numbered at the quarries and brought here ready for use.”
    “Is that so?” Byrne said, turning his head back to the Temple but admonishing himself for not detecting the man’s presence earlier, “Mr. Faustus.”
    Despite the use of his name by a complete stranger,