Prohibition (10 page)

The handwriting on the card was impressively neat. It read:

I have it on good authority that you are a man who knows how to solve problems. I have a problem that requires solving of a permanent nature. Please accept this one thousand dollars as a retainer for your services. Do a good job, and you shall receive twice this amount afterward.

Regrettably, it will be impossible to give you much advanced notice of when I may need you, and for what purpose. I shall give you all the notice I can. Please remain in your apartment each evening for the next three days so I will know how to find you.

You have a reputation for discretion, Mr. Zito. Please, keep it that way.

Talk soon,

Me.

Quinn re-read the note. The tone was fancy and stiff. He couldn’t understand why anyone would write down anything like this in the first place. “Any idea on who sent this?”

Zito shook his head. “Half the people who hire me can’t hardly read, much less write. I don’t exactly advertise, either, so I don’t know how they found me. Normally, I’d be steamed about someone sneaking into my place while I slept, but a thousand bucks does a lot to water down my temper, especially these days.”

Quinn pocketed the note. “So, you get the note and the money. Then what?”

“I waited, just like he told me to,” Zito said. “A grand is more money than I’ve seen in one place in a long time. But I wanted to be ready so that when the guy came back, I could grab him and find out how he found me.

Then yesterday, around five or so, someone bangs on my door. By the time I get over there, there was nobody in the hallway. Just a sack laying against my door. When I open it up, it has another grand in it and another note.” Zito took another note card from the table next to his Murphy bed and handed it to Quinn. “Here. Read it for yourself.”

The handwriting was completely different: bold, blocky letters. It read:

ames pool hall, tonight, 11:00 PM. get there early. give $500 to vinny ceretti at the bar. we know you know who he is. make sure he gets all the money or you don’t get the rest of yours. when vinnie leaves, kill the fat man playing pool. we’ll be watching.

Quinn re read the note. Two notes, two different people. No way of telling why or who wrote them. No sense in wasting time trying to figure it out yet.

“You knew Ceretti?” Quinn asked. “How’d they know that?”

Zito shrugged. “I don’t know. We wasn’t pals or nothing. I just knew

him from around. You know how it is.”

It made sense to Quinn. Ceretti was always sniffing around, looking to scrounge up a buck. He scurried a broad path. “What did you do next?” “I showed up early,” Zito continued. “I waited until Johnny the Kid started playing pool. I spotted Ceretti, stood behind him so he couldn’t see me. Ceretti’s a rat and he woulda given me up in five seconds flat after the shooting if he saw me. I gave him the money, told him to scram. I shot the fat guy playing pool, just like the note told me to do. It was too crowded for a head shot, so I got in close and shot him as best I could. If I knew the guy was that fat, I woulda brought the .45 instead to do the job right. But I’d been paid to do a job and I went to work with what I had.” Zito caught himself and added: “Shit, I...I mean, in this case, I’m glad I didn’t have the .45 because...”

“Skip it. You mean to tell me you didn’t recognize Fatty when you saw him?”

“Sure, I know who he is, but I never saw him before. If I’d known who it was, I never would’ve done the job. And I sure as hell wouldn’t still be here if I did.”

Quinn sat quiet for a while. He watched Zito fidget as he ran through the gunman’s story in his mind.

The whole damned thing was so ridiculous, it just might be true. The note. The small caliber weapon he brought to do the job. Things weren’t adding up to a hoax. If Zito knew who he’d hit, he would’ve run. Why take the chance writing the notes himself? Quinn could’ve just as easily killed him and found them when he tossed the room after.

Things were looking up for Mr. Zito. “So, you shoot Fatty with the pop gun, get downstairs and take off. Then what?”

Zito shrugged. “I...I came back here and someone had thrown another bag of money through my window. Two g’s this time, just like they promised. No note. A lot of it was in singles. I didn’t get the chance to count it, but I’m sure it’s close to two grand. I put the money under the bed with the first thousand they gave me and went to sleep. Next thing I know, you’re giving me the wake up call.”

Quinn still had one question. “What did you do with Johnny the Kid?” “Nothing. What would I bother with him for?”

Quinn saw Zito was telling the truth. Again. “You said the money they gave you is under the bed?”

“Almost three grand, except for the five hundred I gave Ceretti.”

“Show me.” Quinn cocked back the hammer on the .22. “And do it real slow.”

“With the beatin’ you gave me, slow’s the only speed I got.”

He creaked off the bed, cradling his gut. The naked man kept his other arm away from his body and in full view. “I’ll lift the bed up with my leg, nice and easy. When the bed comes up, you’ll see a shotgun on top of the bag. I’m not going anywhere near it, so don’t get nervous.”

Zito slipped his foot under the bed and eased it up. The springs caught and pulled it back into the wall with a loud snap. A large duffel bag and a .12 gauge lay on the floor, just as Zito had said. The Italian backed up against his RCA cabinet, as far away from the shotgun as he could possibly go in the tiny room.

Quinn got up, eased the shotgun off the bag with his foot and moved it over to the side. Zito was still close enough to kick him in the face if he tried to pick it up and he didn’t want to give him the chance.

“You are a careful boy, aren’t you, Carmine? Smart, too. I’ll bet you’re just smart enough to let me walk out of here with all your money and not make a stink about it.”

“Why are you doing this for me...?”

“I won’t be happy, but there ain’t a whole hell of a lot I can do about it right now.”

Quinn liked Zito’s style. His gut told him Zito would make a better ally than a corpse. He might prove useful before all of this was over. “You’re smart, Carmine. Smart all the way around the track. I like that.”

Quinn lifted the sack on to the table where Zito had his gun cleaning set and opened it. Some of the money was bundled, but most of it was just as the gunman had said, lose tens, twenties and lots of singles. Like someone scrambled to get the money together at the last minute.

Quinn pulled out a two hundred-dollar stack and tossed it to Zito. “That’ll keep you afloat for a while. But you won’t need much where you’re going.”

Zito’s let the stack hit him in the chest and fall to the floor. He looked at the gun. “You’re still gonna kill me? After all that?”

“Don’t be a dope.” Quinn opened the cylinder of the .22. and dumped the shells on the floor. “You’re the only link I’ve got to whoever wanted Fatty dead. Besides, I’ve got big plans for you.” He tossed the empty gun to Zito, then looked at the clock on the wall. 8:20 AM. “Do you know where the Chauncey Arms is?”

Zito began pulling on some clothes. “Thirty-ninth and ninth?” “Twenty-ninth and ninth,” Quinn repeated. “It ain’t The Algonquin, but your employers will never find you there if they come looking. Ask for Joey, the manager. Tell him I sent you and he’ll set you up fine. Stay there until I call for you. And don’t get any ideas about rabbitting on me.” Quinn held up the sack. “You’ll get this back when all this is over.”

He took Zito’s .45 from his pocket, ejected the magazine left it on the

table. “You’re going to need this; the shotgun, too. I’ll call you personally when I need you. If someone else calls saying I told them to call you, hang up and get the hell out of there. If they come knocking at the door ...” He looked at the shotgun, then at Zito. “You’ll know what to do.”

Quinn picked up the duffel bag and headed for the door.

“Why are you doing this for me,” Zito asked, “after what I did to Mr.

Corcoran?”

Quinn paused half way out the door. “Someone’s running a game on you, just like they’re running a game on Archie. And when I find out who they are, I’m going to make them pay.”

“I don’t like people using me, mister. When you need me, I’ll be ready.” Quinn closed the door behind him and bounded down the stairs, past the rats and the street vendors. And none of them bothered to look his way.

I
T WAS
close to noon by the time Quinn got back to his apartment above the Longford Lounge. He was dizzy from the lack of sleep.

The apartment was empty, but he could tell Alice had been there. The rumpled bed sheets outlined where she’d slept. The air still smelled of her: cheap gin and that tonic she used to keep her hair flat. She always said it smelled like honey. He thought it smelled like hair tonic and it gave him a headache. Images came to him– her long white neck, the way her...

Quinn shook it off. She wasn’t his girl. She wasn’t his friend. She was a goddamned distraction and he had no time for distractions.

He pulled up the corner of the red rug in the middle of the room. He removed a cut out panel from the floor and opened the combination lock of the floor safe beneath it. He put in Zito’s money for safe keeping. If Zito played along, he’d get his money back. The trouble was Quinn didn’t know what game they were playing yet. But he had a feeling he’d figure it out soon enough.

He’d been wearing the same clothes for the past two days. He tossed his shoulder holster on the bed, peeled off his clothes and stepped into the shower. The hot water beat down on his neck and shoulders. The water felt good on his sore hands. Ira’s punks might’ve been soft, but they had hard heads.

He shut off the water and toweled off. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror on the back of the bathroom door. Alice had once told him he was so ugly, he was handsome. She liked to trace his scars and ask about them.

A knife fight with Richie Dago had left him with a purple six-inch scar that stretched from his stomach to his ribs. His right shoulder was still a bit out of joint from the wicked left hook he’d caught from Big John Genet in The Garden back in ‘25. The left shoulder had been separated when he burst through a door looking for Brody and the money he owed Archie. Quinn’s nose had been busted more times than he could count. His jaw too.

He smiled at his reflection. Alice was right. If ugly was handsome, Terry Quinn was beautiful.

Quinn stretched out naked on his king-sized bed. Some of Alice’s body heat was still in the sheets and it relaxed him.

He wanted to sleep, but his mind was too crowded. Too busy. He started piecing together everything he’d learned instead.

Wallace paid Ceretti to set up the game with Fatty Corcoran. Wallace knew Rothman and Shapiro, who backed Johnny the Kid. It stands to reason that Wallace had also hired Zito to shoot Fatty. He could’ve just been what he claimed to be: a sporting man who wanted to bet on a pool game. But it was an awfully big coincidence that Fatty happened to get shot during that game. And like Doyle had taught him, coincidences were bullshit.

Zito said he didn’t know who hired him. Quinn knew he shouldn’t believe him, but he did. Finding Wallace was the key. At the least, he was mixed up in this some how. At the most, he’d planned it. Quinn would worry about why later. For now, one thing mattered: finding Simon Wallace.