Whiskey Island by Emilie Richards

“There’s a girl walks her dog down this street. Got me a good seat.”
    “What do you do when she walks by?” Niccolo said.
    The question seemed to throw Winston. For a moment he dropped the tough guy routine, looking puzzled and much younger. Somehow it was the scrap of proof Niccolo needed that these were probably just bored kids with nothing much to do on a Sunday morning. Not gangbangers in training, not juvenile offenders with files as unwieldy as a social worker’s caseload.
    “Look, I know a better place to watch,” Niccolo said.
    “Yeah?” Winston sneered.
    “My front porch. You can sit on the steps.”
    Winston didn’t seem to comprehend.
    “Over there.” Niccolo pointed.
    “Aren’t you afraid we’ll, like, hurt something?” Josh said.
    Niccolo couldn’t help himself. He grinned. “Take a better look. What could you hurt?”
    “Why you be living in a place like this, anyway?” Winston slid gracefully off the trunk, as if he’d never threatened to sit there forever.
    Niccolo pretended not to notice. “I’m fixing it up, doing the work myself. You guys ever do any carpentry?”
    “You kidding?” Josh laughed nervously. “My old man strips my hide I go near his tools.”
    Niccolo knew better than to answer that the way he wanted. He turned to Winston. “How about you?”
    The boy shrugged. Niccolo realized Winston was wearing only a thin denim jacket. He knew better than to comment on that, too. Instead, he started around the side of his car. “When I come back, I’ll show you what I’m doing. If you’re still here.”
    Winston sounded instantly suspicious. “How come? You planning to get us in there and do something to us?”
    Niccolo’s stomach knotted as he thought about all the things these kids had to fear. “Yeah, I am. I’m going to show you what I’m doing with the house, then give you hot chocolate to warm you up. It’s cold out here. That’s it. But you’re smart to wonder, and smarter to ask.”
    Winston’s tough guy veneer fell back in place. “That’s us. We’re just a couple of smart guys, me and him.”
    “Great. The world needs all the smart guys it can get.” Niccolo waved a quick salute, then opened the driver’s door and slid inside. When he started the engine and turned to back out, he saw that the boys had moved out of his way. That seemed like a good sign. He started toward Whiskey Island.
     
    Few cities had thirty acres of prime property standing vacant in the heart of a bustling downtown. Even fewer had vacant lakefront and riverfront acres with priceless vistas. Cleveland had plans for those empty acres on Whiskey Island, although the plans were still being hotly debated. In the meantime, a portion of the peninsula was deserted.
    Niccolo hadn’t lived in the city for long, but he knew that in ten years’ time Cleveland had been transformed from the Midwest’s “Mistake by the Lake” to its “Comeback City.” Cleveland was the home of several beloved sports teams, as well as what many critics considered to be the finest symphony orchestra in the world. It housed a number of highly regarded museums and world-class medical institutions. Gloriously refurbished theaters brought in top entertainers and productions; the “Emerald Necklace” parklands ringing the city brought out hikers and athletes of every stripe.
    But no matter how ambitious community leaders were, not everything could be accomplished at once. The Flats, where Moses Cleaveland had come ashore in 1796 to claim the land for the Connecticut Western Reserve, had received the first burst of enthusiasm and money. Warehouses and factories along the Cuyahoga River had been converted into a Great Lakes, toned-down version of Bourbon Street, with restaurants and bars that raucously overflowed on weekends.
    Whiskey Island, connected to the Flats by the distinctive River Road bridge, was still a transformation waiting to happen. It was an industrial area, home of a working salt mine deep