51
ANSON
“Tell me again,” Stash said from across the table.
We were sitting out in the courtyard off the Market, two tables over from where we ate with Twill on our first day at the Quick.
At this late hour, the courtyard was deserted except for us and a young couple in the opposite corner who looked like they were on the tail end of a date and ready to head somewhere private.
Keeping his voice low so as not to be overheard, Vincent repeated the story.
From the chair beside him, Paul flipped through the various drawings in his sketchbook, providing this illustrated journey to Vincent’s words like some poor man’s business presentation.
Stash followed along, though, his face growing more and more concerned with each turn of the page.
I barely heard Vincent. I didn’t see the drawings.
My mind was replaying the video of the liquor store—that girl being kidnapped by a man who looked a lot like Stash.
Same size. Same build. I didn’t think Stash had a car, but he easily could have gotten that SUV from Ruddy.
He knew far too much about those who disappeared.
Those who were taken, Father corrected. He’s the last person you should be talking to.
For all you know, he’s handing people off to Hillburn.
Maybe he’s getting paid for it. Maybe Hillburn killed them when they didn’t fit whatever mold he was trying to fill.
Made the deaths look like something they weren’t to throw off the dogs.
No. That wasn’t right. Andy, Emily, the others, that was something else entirely, I explained to Father. The holes in their heads told me that. Hillburn was smart, practical. He might fake the drug overdose, but he’d leave it at that. The holes only led to more questions.
When Vincent finished telling the story for the second time, Stash sank back in his chair and rolled his fingers across the tabletop in a rhythmic thump, thump, thump.
“The Quick operates in a sort of safe space. The city lets us exist because we keep people off the streets. The cops leave us alone for the same reason. Organized crime has a foothold in Charleston, no different than any other port city, any other major city—always has. But for the most part, they leave us alone, too. We give them protection money, a percentage of the revenue we bring in. I suppose that’s why they pushed back on the idea of raiding us. It would be counterproductive.”
“Who’s the ‘bossman’ they kept talking about?”
Stash glanced around the near-empty courtyard and lowered his voice further. “If you believe the papers, it’s a guy named Vincent Gigante out of New York, but the rumor is one of his captains is really calling the shots. A guy named Tucker.”
“Tucker?” Vincent frowned. “Just Tucker?”
“That’s the only name I’ve heard. Not much else. No description. No location. Just Tucker.”
“Who’s your contact?” Vincent asked. “Who do you pay?”
Stash rolled his fingers again, thinking. “The money goes out on the fifth of the month with one of the girls. Lou is told who to give it to. Her ‘date’ takes the package. As far as I know, it’s never the same guy twice.”
“So how do you contact them?”
“I don’t. I’ve never had reason to.” Stash looked around the table.
“You gotta understand something: the Quick was around long before I got here. I came in not much different than the three of you. I had a problem with the bottle and my life came apart. I found myself on the streets. People here at the Quick scooped me up, helped me get it together. Over time, they left; I stayed. After a while, I had some kind of seniority and somehow found myself in charge. I didn’t create all this.
It was here before me, and it will be here after I’m gone.
The monthly payments were just one of many things I’ve learned about over the years.
I never asked for specifics and nobody offered them up. It just was.”
My mind flashed back to the file I’d read on Detective Moss’s table.
Stash’s real name was Leonard Benson. Forty-three years old with a degree in socioeconomics from Stanford.
Hardly the kind of person you’d expect to find homeless, but that tracked with the drinking.
It also tracked with the arrest report Moss had—the bar altercation three years ago.
He hadn’t mentioned his wife, but I was pretty sure Meagan was instrumental in getting him through the Quick’s doors that first time.
“How long have you been here?” I asked.
Stash thought about it for a second. “Going on three years now. This place set me straight.”
That also tied out to the information Moss had.
“Who first told you about the payments?”
“A guy named Leonard. He ran things before me. Was here for nearly a decade before deciding he wanted to head out west. Seattle, I think.”
“Do you have some way to contact him?”
“It’s not like he left a forwarding address,” Stash said before looking at me.
“It wouldn’t matter. Organized crime . .
. those guys . . . they would have sent some low-level person the first time out.
Someone working on orders. They compartmentalize.
That’s how they keep the higher-ups out of jail.
The guy collecting the monthly vig passes it on to his boss, he passes it on, the next guy does too.
Decisions are no different. It’s not worth talking to anyone low in the food chain about this. We need someone higher up.”
“The bossman,” Paul muttered.
Vincent nodded. “Gigante. Tucker. Maybe someone directly below them.”
This made Stash laugh. “If they decide to make a run at the Quick, you’re not going to talk them out of it. They don’t give a shit about us. They’ll smile and tell you to your face they’re not going to touch us, then raid the place an hour later.”
Paul flipped to a blank page in his sketchpad and began drawing the couple in the far corner of the courtyard in quick, sharp lines. “No honor among thieves, then.”
“Not in the slightest,” Stash agreed before studying each of our faces. “I can’t condone how you got the information, but this is good intel, gentlemen. We can beef up our defenses and be ready for them. They won’t be taking any of our residents on my watch. The twenty-ninth is only—”
“Anson Bishop?”
Two uniformed patrol officers were standing behind us, blocking the courtyard exit to the street. A third quickly shuffled around to the other side and stood in front of the doors leading back into the market. Although none of them had drawn their weapons, all three appeared ready to do just that.
Stash started to get to his feet, then seemed to think better of it and settled back down. “What is this about?”
“We have orders to take Mr. Bishop into custody,” the first one said, his eyes never leaving me.
Stash’s brow furrowed. “Under whose authority?”
The officer’s hand slipped from the butt of his service weapon to his handcuffs. He removed them from his belt. “Do you plan to interfere?”
Both Vincent’s hands were under the table. His jaw had grown tense. As far as I knew, he still had the gun. I couldn’t let him do something stupid.
Paul looked like he might make a run for it. I brushed the corner of his sketchbook with my fingertips to settle him down, then rose slowly, holding out my wrists to the officer with the handcuffs. “It’s okay. I’ll go.”
“Anson,” Vincent gritted his teeth. “We don’t know these guys.”
I knew what he meant. It was the first thought to go through my head—they might work for the same people as Welderman and Stocks. Van Man. Porter. As dirty as all the rest.
Run, Champ.
I didn’t.
The officer cuffed me in the front, then jerked me roughly toward the exit. The other officer closed ranks behind us, between me and my friends. They nudged me through the gate to the sidewalk, toward two awaiting patrol cars parked half a block down the street.