Prohibition (13 page)

When they were out of earshot, Walker queried, “What the hell was that all about?”

Quinn said nothing.

“His world’s falling apart and he’s playing king maker?” Walker went on. Then, as was Walker’s custom, he switched gears. “But, if we could get Al to run and if we could do it the right way this time, that half-baked scheme of his might work.”

“That would make Archie very happy,” Quinn conceded.

They walked through the back of the kitchen, past the two men guarding the rear stairwell. Quinn escorted him down to the casino, two flights below.

When they got to the lower landing, they were greeted by an orchestra of gambling sounds. A marble ball rolling along the track of a roulette wheel, the muffled scramble of dice rolling along the felt of the craps table, the gentle clink of chips, and the cheers and moans of hitting a winning number.

“Good luck on the roulette wheel, Your Honor, and let us know if you need anything.”

For the first time in all the years Quinn had known him, Walker didn’t rush into the casino.

“I got a real bad feeling off Archie tonight, Quinn. And I don’t mean because he got sore at me at the end there. It’s almost like he was...afraid... or desperate. I’ve never heard him sound like that before.”

Quinn lied. “I’m sorry you feel that way, sir. I’m sure he’s just tired.”

But Walker didn’t look so sure. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe the whole thing with Fatty’s been harder on him than I thought.”

Walker offered him a weak smile and a pat on the arm. Then he slipped into the casino.

The mayor’s words haunted Quinn as he walked up the back stairs. Running Al Smith again for president might be a tough sell, but Archie wasn’t desperate. Impossible.

But it was. Quinn had seen fear in enough men to know he’d seen it in Archie that evening. Did he really think Al Smith being president was his shot at respectability? Quinn was glad he didn’t have to answer. He just did what he was told. Let the bigger brains worry about politics, Prohibition and the future. He had a saloon to run, money to earn, and a man in a white suit to find.

Q
UINN GOT
back upstairs and walked through the main dining room of the Lounge. He waved to some of the better patrons who called out to him. Being social was good for business. Everyone wanted to know the guy who ran the joint. Everyone wanted to look like a big shot to their friends and mistresses. As long as they kept shelling out the dough, Quinn let them think whatever the hell they wanted.

Wendell Bixby, the gossip monger for the Journal-American, kept trying to catch his eye. Quinn let them all wait. Quinn took a cigarette from his case and lit it. “What’s the disposition?” he asked Tommy.

“The usual assortment of fine ladies and gentlemen and everything in between,” Tommy said. “We’ve a boomin’ business at the bar, the tables are full and your colored band is keeping them hopping, which should make them all good and thirsty.” He poured enough gin and vermouth for three martinis into the tumbler and gave it a couple of good shakes. “Even New York’s Finest seem to be having a ball over there.”

Quinn found the cops’ reflections in the large mirror behind the bar. Doherty and Halloran had parked themselves at the bar near the door. Their cheap suits, bad ties and hang dog expressions screamed out ‘copper’ to anyone who saw them. They casually eyeballed the crowd while they downed highballs. Older and thinner, Doherty did a better job of blending in than Halloran, but not by much.

Doherty caught Quinn’s stare in the mirror and toasted him with the highball glass. Quinn offered a salute with his cigarette.

“They give you any trouble?” Quinn asked Tommy.

“That big bastard Halloran had the gall to demand the best rum in the house, but I’ve been giving them that watered down paint we got from The Peacock after it closed down last week.”

“Just make sure they don’t go blind.”

“Never fear,” Tommy said. “Besides, you’ve got bigger worries before

you.” He poked his thumb over his left shoulder and said, “Her Grace has been acting up again.”

Quinn saw Alice laughing it up at a table with a couple of banker types. Quinn didn’t like her flirting with guys twice her age. He didn’t like her hitting the sauce so hard after getting plastered the night before. He didn’t like they way she leaned forward to show her cleavage when she laughed.

He didn’t like hearing her sloppy cackle that caused people to look at her. He didn’t like that he was starting to give a damn about her.

“What’s she drinking?” he asked Tommy.

“Her hosts are paying for Dewars, but I know how wild she gets on the good stuff,” Tommy said placing lemon rinds in the glasses of the newly poured martinis. “I’m serving her the same watered down stuff your boys in blue are having. I won’t let her get too loaded, I promise.”

That was one of the reasons why Quinn liked Tommy. He knew how to save his customers from themselves. “You’d better deliver those martinis before they get warm.”

Quinn felt something strike him on the shoulder. He turned to see Alice swaying in front of him, ready to hit him again with her purse.

“You dirty, cold hearted son of a bitch,” she slurred. Her left eyebrow was cocked. A thick strand of black hair had fallen over one eye. Her nude colored evening gown was hanging a little lower in the front than it should’ve been. The brown beauty mark on her left breast showed. He remembered another mark on her stomach. There was a third matching mark on her inner thigh. Kissing them in the right sequence drove her wild. As drunk as she was, she looked beautiful.

Quinn laid his cigarette in the ashtray. “Didn’t leave anything out, did you, sister?”

“You left me alone last night,” she slurred. “How dare you treat me like shit when there’s guys all over this city that’d give anything to turn out the light with me lying next to them?”

She was beginning to draw the attention and catcalls from the bar. Quinn knew he’d have to calm her down before she made a scene. “Sorry, angel, but something came up.” He tried to gently take her arm. “Why don’t we go upstairs right now where we can talk?”

Alice wrenched her arm free. “You mean somewhere so I’ll be nice and quiet, you goddamn bastard. How can you look at me like I’m nothing to you in front of all these people. Like I’m some cheap whore you paid off after you had your fun. All Doyle and those sons-a-bitches want to do is use you. I love you.”

Quinn pulled her closer to him. “If you’d been sober long enough, you’d see things have been a little busy around here the last couple of days. Now, let me take you upstairs.”

Tommy placed a steaming cup of black coffee on the bar in front of her. “Drink up, darlin’. A little cup o’ joe right now will do you a world of good.”

“Sure, sure,” Alice slurred again. She looked at the coffee like it was poison. “Drink coffee. Get her upstairs. Let her sleep it off. Anything to shut the drunken bitch up so your customers can go on having fun.” The crowd cheered and toasted the sentiment.

Alice’s eyes flickered. Quinn moved to catch her. She rebounded and backed away from him. “It’s always Archie Doyle, isn’t it? You and that cheap hood sitting on top of all your money looking down at the rest of us like we was shit.”

She hauled off and swung her bag with all of her might. She missed wildly and spun completely around. The entire bar cheered and called out for more. Quinn grabbed her before she fell and gently wrapped his arms around her shoulders to hold her up. She reeked like one of Doyle’s breweries.

She broke down into sobs and buried her face in his chest. Her head hung to one side, revealing the length of her white neck. He fought the longing stirring inside him. There’d be plenty of time to get laid later.

Alice was right. Time to shut the drunken bitch up and get her up stairs. Quinn beckoned Sean Baker over and handed Alice off to him. He made sure his hand wasn’t high enough to touch her breast or too far behind to touch her ass. He handed Baker the key to his apartment upstairs. “Bring her up to my place and lock her in. Let her sleep it off for a while.”

“Okay, boss,” Baker said, struggling against Alice’s dead weight “but there’s a man at the door who...”

“Whoever it is can wait. She’s more important.”

The patrons at the bar cheered and raised glasses at the weeping Alice as Baker led her from the room. For the reputation of the Lounge, and for other reasons he dare not admit to himself, Quinn wanted to get their focus off her. He knew alcohol was the best way to do that. “Tommy, give the bar a round on the house.”

Another loud cheer went up. Tommy got busy filling glasses. Quinn made the rounds to all the regular patrons at the bar. He winked away the trouble with Alice. Wendell Bixby tried to get his eye again, but Quinn ignored him. The scribbler was only looking for an item for his damned column.

Quinn went over to Doherty and Halloran to see if they had anything on Simon Wallace.

Halloran toasted him before he drained his glass. “You’re a regular Rudolph-fucking-Valentino, my friend. For a common hooch punk you’ve sure got a way with the ladies. And what a set she has on her.”

Quinn’s temper spiked. “What would you know about a set, Jim? You haven’t been anywhere near a teat since you were in diapers.”

Halloran spat out his rum and threw his glass to the floor. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He reared up to his full six feet three inches. He almost matched Quinn eye to eye. “That mouth of yours is gonna get you killed one day, hooch punk.”

Quinn glared back and grinned hard. “But not tonight and not by you.”

“That’s enough, Jim,” Doherty scolded him from his barstool. “Go outside and cool off for a while.”

But Halloran held his ground. “You and I are going to dance real soon, Quinn. You hear me? Real soon.”

Quinn gave Halloran the smirk he saved just for him. As the cop turned and stormed out of the place.

Doherty watched him leave, then turned back to his rum. “Jim’s had a rough night. We just pulled Johnny the Kid off a meat hook over on the East side about an hour ago. Cab driver, too.”

Quinn bit into his cigarette. He’d figured The Kid and the cabbie were dead. Knowing for sure didn’t make him feel any better about it.

Doherty continued. “Looks like whoever it was took their time, too. They hacked out his tongue and put it in his back pocket for good measure. Guess someone thought he talked. No twenty year old deserves to end up like that. Poor kid wasn’t old enough to deserve the end of a meat hook.” He drank and put his glass down. “You know, if I hadn’t seen you send the Kid off in a cab with my own two eyes, I would’ve figured you for the job.”

“Meat hooks and hack jobs aren’t my style. You know that.”

Doherty seemed to buy that. “Where’d you say you sent him off to again?”

“I didn’t say.” Quinn wasn’t about to tell Doherty now, especially after

Johnny the Kid wound up dead. The less the police knew, the better. “What about Simon Wallace?”

“Nothing yet,” Doherty said, “but we’re looking around. Oh, I forgot to tell you: Vinny Ceretti turned up. Some railroad detectives found him in a train car with a .45 slug through his belly this morning.”

Quinn knew he’d shot Ceretti in the head, but wasn’t dumb enough to correct him. “Another pillar of society crumbles. I’m all broken up.”

“You should be. Things are getting out of hand; first Corcoran, then Ceretti, Shapiro, Johnny the Kid and the cabbie. That’s four separate examples of violence involving the Doyle and Rothman mobs in less than twenty four hours. Two dead bodies that I know about. More to come, I’m sure. I saw Walker in here tonight and I’m sure he told you if you can’t keep a lid on things, we’ll have to do it for you.”