Prohibition (24 page)

His right hand held the .45 in his pocket. He’d almost passed out from the pain when he tried putting on his shoulder holster.

Quinn knew he should’ve been in bed. But he needed to be here more. He’d been there for two hours, eyeballing the street. The windows and rooftops and everyone who went in and out of the wake house to pay their respects to the families.

They all looked harmless enough. Mostly poor working class Micks in their Sunday best. Red-eyed and puffy from crying over the tragic loss of youth. Some cried because they knew the boys. Others cried because it could’ve been their sons in a box. All five men who had died at headquarters had been in their twenties. All came from big families in the Kitchen. Quinn didn’t look at the mothers as they passed by. Crying women always got to him. Crying mothers worst of all.

He’d handled his own crying woman earlier that morning.

Quinn had woken up groggy and sore. Too sick to eat. Barely able to stand. Too stubborn to stay in bed where he belonged. Archie needed protecting.

“Please stay in bed, Terry,” Alice had begged him between the tears. “Archie knows you’re hurt. Even he told you to stay put. He’s got enough people to keep him safe. What if them stitches come loose? What if you start bleeding again? Who’ll dive in front of a bullet to save you? Let somebody else take care of him for once.”

“I owe him,” Quinn remembered saying. “I owe him everything.”

“Any debt you owed him was paid in full long ago,” she wailed. “I can take the danger, Terry. I can take the late nights and the bullets and the blood and the cops and the hospital rooms and the jail cells.” She shook her head. The tears came bigger now. “But I can’t take the wake house. I can’t watch them lower you into the ground. I won’t become a widow for you, Terry, and I can’t watch you kill yourself for someone like Archie Doyle. I won’t do that. I can’t. I love you too much.”

Quinn had heard this from other women many times before. This time it was different. This time, it hurt.

He answered her the only way he knew how. “If you love me, you’ll understand why I have to go to him. And I hope you’ll still be here when I get back.”

She had looked like she would cry if there were any tears left. “Why should I?”

Quinn did his best to manage a smile before stepping into the shower. “Because I guess I love you too.”

The shower had put a dent in the morphine haze. He felt like he had enough energy to get dressed and walk out of the house. He saw Alice had laid out his clothes on the bed for him. She’d even dusted off an old black fedora he’d had in the back of his closet.

But she was gone, save for a small note tucked in his hatband. Just five words:

Because I love you too much.

Now, as he stood alone in front of McNabb’s, he told himself it was the cold wind that made his eyes water.

The hole in his side still ached bad. His head was sore. His ribs hurt. He felt like he had a pretty bad fever. He was very weak, but stronger than he’d been yesterday. He focused on the good things.

They were all he had left.

Quinn spotted a gray Cadillac Coupe slow in front of the funeral home. He didn’t recognize the car. He inched the .45 out of his pocket. He was in no shape for a gunfight as he was. But as he was, he wouldn’t run from one.

He was glad to see Jimmy Cain and a couple of his men climb out in advance of Doyle.

“What the hell are you doing out of bed?” Cain asked him. “You look like shit.”

“Stow the compliments,” Quinn said. “Archie on his way?”

“Yeah, I ran ahead to look things over, but I’ll bet you’ve already done that.”

Quinn kept eyeing the street. “Just the usual weepers. I didn’t check inside yet. Take your men inside. I’ll walk Archie in.”

Cain brought his men inside the funeral home to check things out. A line of mourners was starting to form in the lobby. Soon it would run out the door and into the street. He’d witnessed this kind of scene often since joining up with Archie.

Archie’s silver Deusenberg pulled up in front with Baker at the wheel. Quinn went and opened the door for his boss. Doyle stepped out of the back seat, bright and ruddy as ever. A black coat around his shoulders. A black silk sling that cradled his arm beneath the coat.

Doyle glared up at Quinn for a long moment in the rain. He broke into a broad smile. “You stubborn son of a bitch. You outta be home in bed with that pretty young singer of yours instead of freezin’ your ass off for a sorry old man like me.”

“And you should be in Millbrook, with a lot of wide open farm land and your horses.”

Doyle laughed and squeezed Quinn’s arm. “I’m glad you’re here, kid. Hurt much?”

“Only when I breathe. Any word from Rothman?” “No. But I’ve got faith he’ll pull through.”

Jimmy Cain came out of the wake house and met them at the curb. “Inside’s fine. Lots of sad faces, but they all look peaceable enough.”

Doyle shrugged out of his overcoat to reveal a simple black suit beneath. He let Quinn take his coat and hat. “Now, I don’t want you or the boys babyin’ me while I’m in there, understand? Don’t crowd me while I’m with the families. This ain’t about me today. It’s about the five poor boys who died keepin’ me alive yesterday.”

Quinn had seen his boss work the room at a variety of functions over the years. But it was the wakes where the old man really shined. The grief of others brought something out in him, something deep and natural and comforting.

Quinn and Cain stayed back while Doyle walked into the first room where young Liam Sullivan was laid out. Archie quietly waited his turn at the end of the line like everyone else. Eventually, word spread that Archie Doyle Himself had come to pay his respects. Sullivan’s sister came out to pull him off the line and escort him up to greet Liam’s mother. After all, Archie Doyle Himself was too important a man to be left waiting in line.

As Doyle walked into the room with her, everyone looked around and gasped. Nurses, deliverymen, truck drivers, day laborers, bus drivers, cops and bartenders all stood out of respect. It was as if a judge had just walked into his courtroom. The irony was not lost on Quinn. They ought to stand, he thought. Most of them only had jobs because Archie Doyle had gotten them for them. Doyle put coals in their furnaces and clothes on their backs. He put money in their pockets.

And sometimes he put their sons in early graves. But such was the price these people were willing to pay for living in the new world.

Quinn watched Doyle take a knee before the seated Mrs. Sullivan. He watched Archie hold the old woman’s hand and speak to her softly. Quinn had heard it before, how tragic it was that Liam had been taken from them so young by godless heathens. How he prayed that God would watch over Liam and his family for all of their days.

Quinn then watched Doyle gave Mr. Sullivan a firm handshake and tell him he raised a fine young man and it was an honor to have known him and asked him to please call him if he could be of any service.

Quinn knew this would be a day long remembered by the Sullivan clan and the four other families mourning in McNabb’s Funeral Home that day. This was they day that Archie Doyle, Himself came by to pay his respects. This was the day they shook the grand man’s hand.

The four other wakes in various parts of the funeral home played out the same way. The last one, the one for the O’Connor boy, was the most raw. Upon seeing Doyle, O’Connor’s mother slapped his face, and pounded his chest as she screamed, “You did this! You got my boy killed!

You and your goddamned rackets and your booze and your lousy money!” Doyle motioned for Quinn and Cain to stay back. Doyle let Mrs. O’Connor pounded his chest and his wounded shoulder until she could pound no more. She collapsed against him, sobbing uncontrollably. Doyle held her with his one good arm while she quietly wept. A tear ran down his cheek as he whispered how sorry he was, how tragic it was that her son had been taken from her so young by godless heathens, how he prayed that God would watch over young O’Connor’s family for all of their days.

Doyle shook hands with other people on his way out. Quinn and Cain met him when he got back out into the hallway.

Doyle wiped the remnants of the tear from his cheek. “Christ, I hate wakes, but I think I hate the wet ones the most.” To Cain, he said, “Have Baker bring the car around. I’ll be out in a minute.” He looked up at Quinn.

“Come with me for a moment, Terry.”

Quinn followed his boss down a hall, past the bathrooms to the manager’s office. Doyle pushed the door open without knocking.

John McNabb greeted him with open arms. “Mr. Doyle, how wonderful to see you again,” McNabb said. He was a bespectacled, quiet looking man Quinn judged to be in his mid-fifties. He bore a permanent look of calmness and understanding and sympathy most funeral directors acquire. “I’m sorry it couldn’t be under better circumstances.”

Doyle shook his hand. “It’s been many moons, hasn’t it Jackie Boy? You don’t mind if me and Terry here use your office for a couple of minutes.” It was a statement, not a question.

McNabb looked around the office nervously. “I’m sorry, Mr. Doyle. If I’d known you’d require meeting facilities, I would’ve cleaned up for you.” “Don’t worry about a thing,” Doyle took a seat behind McNabb’s desk.

“We’ll manage just fine. We’ll only be a few minutes.”

McNabb scurried out of the room and shut the door behind him. Doyle struck a match with his good arm off McNabb’s desk and lit his cigar. “Degenerate bastard. Son of a bitch takes every dime he gets from this place and puts it on a nag’s nose instead of takin’ care of his wife and kids. He’s into me for three large and I’ll just bet the dopey hump was just itchin’ to ask me about who’s payin’ for these wakes. He’s lucky I don’t take this joint away from him.”

Quinn took a seat. The pain from the wound spiked. He was getting used to it.

“Please tell me you’re still heading up to Millbrook after this.” “I am, and I’m putting you in charge of things while I’m gone.”

Quinn heard the words, but knew he must’ve heard them wrong. “Sure, boss. In charge of what?”

“Everything. The gang, the rackets, the money, the boys, the booze. The Lounge too, but, you’re already in charge of that so I guess that don’t count but...”

Quinn felt himself go numb again and he knew it wasn’t from the morphine. “You want me in charge? Of everything?”

“Why not?” Doyle let out a long plume of black smoke. “There’s nobody else I’d rather have in charge right now and truth is I don’t have anybody else. Fatty’s too sick to take over and even if he wasn’t, he doesn’t have the heart for this kind of thing.”

Quinn’s mind scrambled to find someone else. What did he know about running things? He was just the hired muscle. He did what he was told and kept his mouth shut. There had to be someone else. Then it came to him:

“What about Frank Sanders? You had him run things that time you were in Canada for a while.”

“Things change, kid. I love Frankie like a brother, but him and me ain’t exactly been seein’ things eye to eye lately. Take that talk we had with Walker a couple of nights back. I know he don’t think much of my idea about runnin’ Al for president again. That’s his opinion. But he spouted off in front of people against me before.” Doyle waived the whole thing off.

“He’s been cloistered up in the Heights too long, anyway. Besides, Walker likes you better and we need Walker happy, especially now. The happier he is, the more persuasive he’ll be with Al.”

Quinn’s mouth went dry. Doyle was serious handing him the keys. “But I’ve never run anything, Archie. I can’t do Fatty’s job and your job and figure out who shot Fatty. I can’t do one of them things by myself, much less all of them at once.”

Doyle swung his feet off the desk and leaned forward to face Quinn.

“You’re wrong, champ. I’ve been watchin’ you for a long time now, and believe me, you’re ready. And you won’t be doing it alone. Jimmy Cain will be right here to help you.”

“No,” Quinn argued. “Cain’s going with you. I want him around if that other chopper squad comes gunning for you.”

“I’ve already got Baker and three good boys headin’ up there with me. And I ain’t exactly helpless myself. I’ll be fine. And so will you.”

Quinn got dizzy thinking about all the plates Doyle kept spinning. The rackets, the joy houses, the betting parlors, the warehouses, the cops and the speakeasies. The people that owed Doyle money. The people Doyle paid off. Quinn had never wanted this. None of it seemed right.

“If it’s any consolation,” Doyle added, “I ran it by Fatty this morning. He’s all for it.”

Quinn perked up. “Fatty’s awake?”

“Sure is and doing better by the hour, the fat bastard.” Doyle smiled.

“He said you’ve done a great job runnin’ the Lounge. Runnin’ a gang’s no different. Just a bit bigger, that’s all. You need any advice, Fatty’ll help. Believe me I’ve only gotten this far because his head’s been on my shoulders.”

Quinn knew Archie had made his decision and that’s all there was to it.

Terry Quinn was running the largest criminal empire on the east coast. “Did you tell Sanders yet?”

“Yeah,” Doyle winced. “He wasn’t what I’d call ‘overjoyed’, but he didn’t

speak against you, neither, kid. I’m sure he’ll be there for you if you need him, as a favor to me if for no other reason.”