Prohibition (5 page)

Quinn wanted more, but a loud banging noise from the front of the pool hall cut him off. He turned to see Officer Liam O’Hara rapping on the busted door with his nightstick.

He was red haired and barrel-chested, with a thick, drooping moustache that covered most of his mouth. O’Hara wasn’t only one of New York’s Finest, but one of Doyle’s finest, too. He’d been on Archie’s payroll for years and was a frequent guest at the Longford Lounge. O’Hara had a habit of running behind on his tab. Quinn had a habit of forgetting about it.

“Well, if it ain’t Terry Quinn himself come downtown to pay us a visit,” O’Hara boomed as he strode into Pete’s. Shards of broken glass crackled beneath his shoes as he walked inside. “Looks like a helluva party.”

“Evening, Liam,” Quinn said. O’Hara might’ve been a crooked cop, but he was still a cop. Quinn stowed his .45 in his pocket to avoid any awkward questions. “Just a minor disagreement is all.”

O’Hara kept kicking glass out of his way, then spotted Shapiro and the other two laying in the hallway. “Sweet Jesus, what happened to them?”

“Beats me,” Quinn said. “I was just passing by when I heard shots. I think it was an attempted burglary.”

O’Hara cocked an eyebrow up at him. “Just passing by, eh?” He looked down at Shapiro. “That how it happened, Ira?”

Shapiro was bleeding badly from the wound. His head lolled around and his words were thick through sagging lips. “Donkey bastards,” he slurred. “Can’t trust them fucks...”

O’Hara peered down at the wound. “It looks like a forty-five slug. That’s the same caliber you carry, isn’t it, Terry?”

“Small world,” Quinn said.

O’Hara cleared his throat. He tapped the only conscious Shapiro thug on the shoulder. “What about you, Smittie? Did you see how it happened? Was it a burglar who done all this?” It was more of a statement than a question.

Smittie looked up at Quinn, then at O’Hara and said, “That’s the way it happened, officer. Lousy burglars jumped us. Neighborhood’s been going down hill lately. Gettin’ so a man can’t hardly make an honest livin’ around here no more.”

O’Hara pulled out his notebook and started writing. “Burglars.”

Quinn didn’t like his tone. “That’s what I told you.”

“So you did,” O’Hara said. “So you did. Who am I to say otherwise?”

He spotted Johnny the Kid sitting at the counter with his head in his arms, sobbing. “What about him?”

“He’s nobody,” Quinn said. “Stumbled in here a couple of minutes after me, lit to the gills. I doubt anything he says would make much sense.”

“If you say so,” O’Hara said. “I’m not looking for any trouble.”

“Glad to hear it,” Quinn palmed O’Hara a twenty. “I think I’d better get this boozer a cab and let you boys get to work.”

“You’re a good man, Terry Quinn,” O’Hara said as he made the bill disappear. “If we had more like you, this city would be a beautiful place to live.”

Quinn eased Johnny off the stool and edged him toward the door. “Don’t forget to call a doctor for old Ira over there. He looks pretty bad.”

O’Hara went back to writing in his notebook. “For a pillar of the community such as Ira Shapiro, you can rest assured I’ll do my damnedest to make sure he gets the finest medical care possible – right after I finish writing me notes.”

Quinn placed a large, heavy hand on the back of Johnny the Kid’s neck and steered him out the front door, crunching broken glass on their way as they did so.

Quinn doubted O’Hara would let it go at that and the policeman didn’t disappoint. “Try not to stumble upon any more burglars on your way home,” he called after them. “One mess like this per night is more than enough. And be sure to give Fatty my regards. We’re all prayin’ for him.”

“Y
OU’RE NOT
gonna kill me, are you mister?” Johnny cried.

Quinn steered him west, walking as far away from Pete’s as quickly as possible. He glanced back to make sure no one was following them. “Start talking, Johnny.”

“I don’t know nothin’, mister, honest.” Johnny said. “Mr. Shapiro can tell you a lot more than I ever could.”

“The cops have him, but I’ve got you,” Quinn said. “Tell me what happened back at Ames’ tonight and I’ll let you skate with a couple of bucks in your pocket. That’s a square deal for a pool shark like you.”

“I’m not a shark,” Johnny sniffled.

“Shut up.” Quinn clipped him in the back of the head and shoved him further down the street. “Tell me what happened before Ames’ yesterday.” “I was shooting a couple of games in a joint on Delancey when I saw Mr. Shapiro arguing with some guy outside on the street.”

“Who? What’s his name?”

“I don’t know, I never saw him before.”

“Then what did he look like?”

“A little taller than me. Older, too. Wore a white hat and a white suit, too.”

Quinn stopped cold. It was the same guy Ceretti had described. “What’d they talk about?”

“I couldn’t hear,” Johnny said, “but the guy in white did a lot of pointing and yelling. I never saw Mr. Shapiro take guff like from anyone.”

“Then what?”

“The man in white took off and Mr. Shapiro came back inside. Told me to get some rest because we had a big money game that night. The kind of game that could put me in the money if I did good.”

Then Johnny started with the tears. “I swear I didn’t know that fat man worked for Archie Doyle, mister. No one told me nothing about him.”

Johnny started to buckle. Quinn grabbed him by the back of the neck and kept him moving. “Did you see this clown in the white suit at Ames’? While you were shooting pool with Fatty?”

“He might’ve been there. I don’t know. When I play, I don’t look around, mister. Ask anyone.”

Quinn knew the truth when he heard it and he was hearing it then. He was either too scared to lie or the best actor since Lionel Barrymore. Quinn shoved the hustler against a building and pulled out a pad and pen from inside his overcoat pocket. He scribbled a name and number on a sheet of paper, ripped it off and handed it to the hustler.

“That’s the name and address of Sander’s Billiards up in Inwood. Go there and ask for a Frank Sanders. Give him that piece of paper and tell him I sent you. He’ll take care of you after that.”

Johnny didn’t even bother to look at the piece of paper. He folded it over and put it in his back pocket. “Why do I have to go all the way up there?”

Johnny flinched when Quinn went to clip him again. “Because I told you too, stupid. And because there’s nowhere else for you to go. If you head back to Shapiro, you’ll wind up in a body bag. He’ll figure you told me something, even though you didn’t.”

The Kid looked like he was going to cry again. “That’s not fair.”

“Fair’s got nothing to do with it. You’re better off without him anyway.”

Quinn spotted a cab from the Bradley Cab Company and hailed it. Bradley Cab was one of Doyle’s companies, so Quinn knew Johnny would make it up to Frank’s joint alright.

Quinn pushed The Kid in the back seat, then threw a couple of twenties at him. “Take that and keep your head down if you know what’s good for you. Have Frank call me once you get settled.”

The driver recognized Quinn and started with the small talk, but Quinn cut him off. “Take this kid up to Frank’s place and step on it. Anyone gets in your way, run them over.”

Quinn slammed the door shut and watched the cab take off along Third Street until it disappeared into the early morning fog. No one was tailing it.

Quinn hoped he hadn’t made a mistake by letting Johnny live.

He probably should’ve plugged Johnny just like he’d killed Ceretti. To send the right message for all the wrong people. But Ceretti was different. He was in the Life. He should’ve known better than to set up a pool game for Fatty without asking questions. Greed and stupidity got him killed.

Johnny wasn’t in the Life yet. He was just a dumb kid who got caught up in the middle of something he didn’t understand. And, despite his reputation, Quinn didn’t like killing people just for the hell of it. Murder could become an easy solution for most problems. Murder could become a habit and habits made you sloppy. Sloppy got you killed.

Quinn had enough bad habits already.

Johnny the Kid deserved a chance for something more than the Life.

Something better. Quinn had blown his chances for something more. The Life was all he had left.

It was all he really wanted and he damned himself for it.

Q
UINN KNEW
he had to get to a phone and call Doyle. There was probably a payphone in the drugstore across the street, but it was closed.

There were some speakeasies around, but this was the east side. They were all Rothman’s dives. Word about Shapiro would be getting around. He had to get back to the west side and fast.

Quinn decided to drive back home to the Longford Lounge and call Doyle from there. He knew Doyle would be sore at first, but The Kid’s information on the man in the white suit made it almost worth it. Find him, find why Fatty took a bullet.

Quinn’s pocket watch said it was past three-thirty in the morning, that uneasy, undefined part of the day that was no longer dark enough to be night, but not bright enough to be morning. The back end of twilight. The prelude to dawn. Quinn loved this time of day. It defied exact definition and rules.

Ambiguity had always been a close friend of his.

He stayed alert as he walked back to his car. Rothman might already have some boys on the prowl looking to even the score for Shapiro. But the only thing he heard was the creaky wheels of a horse drawn milk wagon on its way to the warehouse to pick up its first shipment of the day.

When Quinn turned the corner off Third Avenue, he saw two men in long overcoats lingering in the middle of the block near his car. The much bigger one was standing next to the streetlight near his Roadster.

The shorter of the two was leaning against the hood of the car. Hat pushed back high on his head, smoke from his cigarette drifted up, mingling with the light from the street lamp. Both men looked at him as he got closer. He recognized them by their shapes before he ever saw their faces.

“Evening, Detective Doherty,” Quinn said to the man leaning against his car. He looked at the larger man. “How’s it going, Halloran? Ready for another day of swiping apples from guinea push carts?”

Detective ‘Big Jim’ Halloran lived up to his name. He was Quinn’s size, but a few years older and a few inches softer around the middle. His long, lantern jaw set on edge and his, thin lips grew thinner. “Not yet, wise guy, but I know an old maid who’s gonna get her lights put out if she keeps running her mouth like that.”

“Don’t mind my partner,” Doherty said. “He’s not used to being up this late. He’s kinda cranky.”

Charlie Doherty might’ve had a hangdog look, but his eyes were anything but lazy. His short cropped hair was graying at the temples. His face bore the lines of a man who’d witnessed a lifetime of human frailty and degradation. He had the air of a man who took everything in stride because there was very little in this world that surprised Doherty any longer. It was tough not to like Charlie Doherty.

He’d also been on Archie’s payroll longer than Quinn. Going on ten years or more. But just like O’Hara, Quinn knew Doherty was still a cop. And he still had a job to do.